Seeking Stardom
by Moondancing Millie
Summary: AU. The world of showbiz is tough, and Suze Simon has just signed a deal with the devil to get her piece. But fame comes at a price and now the new guy at school Jesse De Silva has to help her pay.
1. Bottom of the Barrel

Disclaimer: All hail Meg Cabot. I am a lowly fanfictioner, I own nothing.

A/N: An idea that I've been itching to write. Review or die. Haha, kidding. Kind of.  
It is, despite your first impressions of Chapter One, a Jesse/Suze story. So hang tight, O.K? I've learned my lesson, and I'm sticking with modern-day-era, Jesse/Suze. Because nobody reads anything else!

* * *

"Susannah Simon, everyone!"

Eyes shut, I stepped forward and pressed my lips to the microphone. I shuddered at the cold metal, and my short, amplified breath vibrated back through me and down my spine. With clammy hands I clutched at the stand to steady myself, and the roar of the crowd whistled in my ears.

_This is it._

But then I made the mistake of lifting my lids – just for a fraction of a second – and I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Instead of the cheering crowd at Madison Square Garden that I had been picturing in my mind, I saw a handful of beer bums more interested in flagging down a waitress than hearing my songs. But at the back of the room, perched on a barstool far away from everyone else, was a guy dressed in a suit with the bluest eyes that I'd ever seen.

And he was staring right at me.

"I, er…" I spoke directly into the mic, cursing at the horrible screechy feedback. "I'm going start things with a song I wrote myself…" The guy at the back shifted his weight, balancing an empty beer glass on his knee. Still his gaze didn't waver. He held it, as if he was holding me to the spot, forcing me to wait out this humiliation.

I lifted my guitar over my head, knees buckling as my string twanged in the process. _Pull yourself together,_ I told myself, keeping my eyes down as I fumbled for my lucky guitar pick. _This is your shot._

O.K, so it wasn't a supporting slot for Green Day. Or even anything remotely close. It was the "Scraping the Barrel" open-mic night at the Hind Leg club just out of town that sold lukewarm beer on tap and not a lot else, and it had cost me thirty dollars worth of gas for my mom's car just to get me here, costing me even more in mortification. But it was all I had.

I cleared my throat one final time, deciding that it was now or never. I started strumming, nice and even, and found myself relaxing. I was suddenly grateful that the intro to "Fade Away" was nearly thirty seconds long. It was long enough for me to gather some confidence before I had to open my mouth and actually start singing.

But then my sanctuary time was up, and I prised apart my lips. Taking a deep breath, I began to sing, and was horrified to hear an awful wailing sound flood the room. Was that me? It definitely wasn't what I heard every time I sang in the shower. I closed my eyes, unable to look at my audience. And for a while – all the way to the second chorus – they remained quiet. But then I heard it.

"You suck!"

"Get off the stage!"

I froze, my last, lispy words fading away into nothing. My grip on the neck of my guitar tightened, until my middle string snapped, slashing at my fingers. My feet were rooted to the spot as the crowd got rowdier and rowdier with their complaints, jeering at me and guffawing at my incompetence. A red-faced drunk brandished his beer glass at me, sloshing liquid onto the stage.

"What you still doing standing there?"

Then I was released, the lead in my legs gone, and I ran off the stage as fast I could, my howl of disappointment picked up by the mic as I fled. As I disappeared into the wings, I heard cheers from the crowd. This made me cry harder.

A girl with a clipboard handed me a Kleenex without even looking at me. "We get that a lot with first-timers," she explained, and she ticked my name listlessly. She spoke into her mouthpiece. "Send the next one on."

I was a failure, a joke. I had stuck out a six-month-long waiting list for _that_? To be scoffed at and booed off the stage like some under-performing jester? My tears slowed now as I grew angry with myself. What was _wrong _with me? When it had come to the crunch, my voice had abandoned me, and left me with the singing talent of a six year-old.

I wiped away the damp on my cheeks and pressed an ice-cold water bottle to my flaming skin. The humiliation had made me hot, and I figured I needed a little recuperation time before I could face the drive home again.

I groaned at the thought of telling my mom I failed. Of telling Cee-Cee and Adam, of telling everyone who had faith in me, who thought I could do it. Had I thought that I could do it? I guess I'd thought that at least it would be me singing up there, not some shaken, sick-with-nerves shell of myself.

I took a sip of the water, and then spat it back out at my feet. Maybe I wouldn't go home straight away. Maybe I'd sweet talk my way into getting served a beer…

My reverie was interrupted as I heard the rustle of curtains. I turned, thinking it was Clipboard Girl getting ready to shoo me out of the dressing room that could only be mine for my fifteen minute slot, as bargained. I even held up my packed guitar case to show that I was making a move, only to be surprised when I saw the guy from the back of the bar lingering in my doorway instead.

"Hey," he said, and his velvet-smooth tones made my heart splutter. "Nice set." I scowled at him and turned away again, taking another sip of water.

"Go away," I grumbled, my cheeks burning with embarrassment again. "I'm humiliated enough without you adding to the blow." I set down my guitar case on my dressing table and picked at a peace sign sticker, glancing in the mirror to see whether or not he'd disappeared. But he hadn't – instead he remained stubbornly behind me, flashing a dazzling smile at me as we made eye contact.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked, glaring at his reflection. "An autograph?" The venom in my tone singed my tongue. He came closer, sharp footsteps tap-tap-tapping on the wooden floor. Irritatingly, he avoided all the creaking floorboards, as if he could sense them. I felt a pang of envy – suave and sophisticated, he was everything I wasn't. My antithesis.

"Actually," he replied, and his Listerine-scented breath caressed my neck. "I wanted to speak to you." I reached out to steady myself on my dressing table, but my trembling fingers missed the wood. I groaned inwardly, waiting for the collision with the wall and all the embarrassment that would ensue, but instead I felt warm fingers on my waist. He had held me in place. "Careful," he said.

In one fluid motion, he spun me around in his arms so that our noses were inches away from meeting. His minty scent was stronger now, but I could also smell something else. Tobacco, along with his aftershave. It smelt expensive.

"I'm Paul Slater," he introduced himself, and the fingers on my waist grazed my abs as he raised his hand. I didn't take it. "It's nice to meet you." I raised an eyebrow, as if I very much doubted this. "You played great tonight." I forced myself out of his cosy grip then, pulling a face in disgust.

"Look." I was thoroughly pissed. "You think you're being funny, and you know what? You probably are to all those guys out there who cat-called and jeered me off that stage. But I have had enough of your smarmy crap so if you could _please _just-"

"Here." In the middle of my tirade, he had reached inside his designer jacket and presented me with a business card. I stared at it, words failing me. I waited for him to explain. "I'm Paul Slater," he said again, but this time he elaborated. "I'm an A&R rep from Juice, Inc. and I really liked your stuff tonight."

I took the card slowly, turning it over with my fingers. It was blue and cream, with the kind of design that you know someone spent hours on Microsoft agonising over. In the centre, three lines of black print read:

**Paul Slater**

**Artists and Repertoire**

**Juice, Incorporated.**

There was a telephone number, followed by a fax number, followed by an email address at the bottom of the card in finer font. Paul watched me examine the card patiently, crossing his arms across his chest just slowly enough to seem nonchalant.

I finished reading, and glanced upwards again to see Paul's ice-blue eyes boring into my own, and the expression on his face was almost one of intrigue, as if this was all some kind of experiment. I pocketed the card and folded my own arms below my bust, to mirror him exactly.

"I don't believe you." A small grin stretched across his lips as he heard this, and he raised a single eyebrow. "An A&R rep couldn't possibly be interested in someone who played as crap as I did tonight." Paul shrugged.

"You were nervous," he said, simply, and I realised with a pang that my apprehension must have been visible even at the back of the club. God. How embarrassing. "But you have potential, Susannah Simon. I could see that from the minute you stepped onto that stage." He paused, before extending a single finger towards my face. I flinched as his skin collided with mine, and held my breath as he drew a short line with his fingertip between my eyebrows.

"That little crease you had there?" he asked, and I frowned, before I realised what he meant. "That wasn't because you were nervous, or because you were mad. It was because you were _passionate_." He lowered his voice on the final word, his whisper sending tingles down my neck. "And at Juice, Inc. we want passionate."

I released my breath, exhaling coolly as the prickles on my skin began to disappear. I met Paul's eyes again, and this time I saw something else. It could have been smugness, like he knew I was hooked. Like he could sense those quivers that he had sent down my spine.

I _was _hooked. I was intoxicated by his presence now – I breathed in his scent deeply, tasting the tobacco and mint and aftershave on my tongue. Even as I closed my eyes I could still picture the flecks of gold in his hair, and the even tan that made his skin seem to glow. I heard another sharp footstep and my eyes fell open to find he was closer than ever. If before our noses had been inches away from meeting, they were now centimetres, millimetres, even.

His lips parted, and for one, exhilarated second, I thought he was going to kiss me. But instead, he spoke, blowing his delicious breath into my face.

"I have a feeling we'll be meeting again soon," he said. And then he was gone.

I stayed there, nails biting into the wood of the dressing table as I recounted the past ten minutes, everything about Paul Slater seared into my mind so that I could save it for a time when his attention made sense. And then, when I had recollected myself, I turned around, and collected my guitar case, swinging it with a jaunty feeling of self-achievement as I made it out into the cool outside air, the business card Paul had handed me feeling red-hot in my back pocket.

_We'll be meeting again soon,_ he had said. And as I watched the shiny BMW that no doubt belonged to him get smaller as it hit the horizon, and I knew that he was right.


	2. New Kid in School

A/N: Thanks to the people who reviewed last chapter! I hope you enjoy this chapter, because our favourite ghost-turned-human makes an appearance. Sorry for the wait!

* * *

"No." My mom had even crossed her arms to match the thin line in which she'd set her mouth. "There is no way that you are meeting this boy." I cringed at her word-choice. 'Boy' was no way to describe someone with such a high level of sophistication as Paul.

"But Mom!" I argued, as I had been doing for the past hour. I'd come back too late last night – the house was shut up, and everyone was in bed, even my oldest stepbrother, Jake. I had been forced to creep in quietly and lie in bed, planning the best way to inform my mother of Paul's offer as I listened to the low, phlegmy rumble of Andy's – my stepfather – snoring.

The next morning, I had skipped over entirely what had happened on that stage – i.e., facing enough public embarrassment to last me until I was forty – and presented my mom with Paul's business card. She'd refused outright.

It was there, in the kitchen, that I stood now, bartering for this one piece of freedom. I was obliged to refer to my flawless report card – because when you only have two friends, there's not a lot else you can do in a town like Carmel besides study – but she still didn't budge. Not one bit.

"Oh, _Paul_…" mimicked Brad, in a high falsetto as he trudged into the kitchen, still in his pajamas. I struggled to control my gag reflex as he stretched his arms over his head and revealed two large sweat patches. "Oh, Paul, I love you. Let me have your babies…" I blushed now as I realised he must have overheard my description of Paul. I had fought with myself to make it concise, but evidently, I hadn't been brief enough, and my tone of voice had conveyed exactly how I felt about him.

"Brad, shut up," my mom ordered, before she turned back to me. "Susie, I'm sure he's a very nice guy. But the truth is, every guy is nice when he wants something out of a girl." Oh, please. Spare me the guard-your-flower lecture, I beg you. With his head inside the fridge, I heard Brad snort.

"Maybe you should be giving Brad 'The Talk' and not me, Mom," I said, masking a smirk as I heard his head hit the roof of the fridge. "After all, from what I've heard he's been _exceptionally _nice to Debbie Mancuso-"

"Suze!" Brad's neck, I saw with some pride, had begun to turn its usual grape jelly-purple. "What did you have to do that for-?" I shrugged nonchalantly as my mom turned on him instead, and I slipped out of the room in silence, swiping Paul's business card off the table as I went.

I sank on to my bed, debating my choices for today. As it was Sunday, my only two friends – Cee-Cee and Adam – were at church, along with every other student at my school. And I mean, I would totally have joined them. Except that generally, people with a fixed atheist belief like mine were not really that welcome in church. Especially under the glare of Sister Ernestine.

So instead I turned to homework – a page of quadratic equations and a History essay. If I was sure that Brad wasn't back in his room – a heavy thump-thump-thump up the stairs that sounded a couple of minutes after I retreated to my room told me he'd escaped the Mom lecture for now – I'd have gotten out my guitar, and painfully tried to figure what went wrong last night. But I knew better than this. Last time I'd started singing within a yard's radius of my middle stepbrother, he'd gone round the house replaying my songs word-for-word, with added spite. It had taken a threat of doing the dishes for a whole month from my mother that had stopped him continuing his routine into school.

My Sunday was slow, just like any other, though I was satisfied. After all, it would beat the day that came next, I was sure. Because tomorrow would be Monday, and I'd be back in the clutches of Kelly Prescott and her minions, the girls who ruled the school. And thanks to my before-mentioned report card, paired with my apparent lack of fashion sense, I was hardly their favourite person.

-x-

As I crossed the quad the next morning, the school was alight with fresh gossip. For one horrific second, I worried that word had got out about my "Scraping the Barrel" stint, and I would be not only the laughing stock of the Hind Leg, but also of my school. I approached some of the larger crowds of people, waiting for the sniggers, but they didn't come. Instead, I saw him.

He was tall – taller than even the six-foot-plus jocks. The fog from the bay meant that he had wrapped a thick, cashmere scarf around his neck – which was an olive colour, to match the rest of his smooth skin – and the dark brown jumper he wore was a similar shade to his hair. I watched in wonder as the light breeze jostled his curls, even the ones that caressed the nape of his neck, and then was over the moon when his delicately sculpted face turned in my direction, and I could lose myself in his deep, chocolate eyes.

I was still swimming as I heard the bell ring; a soft tinkling in the distance that didn't really apply to me anymore. I was too busy admiring this new God, the new reason to rush to school in the early morning.

But then, as the crowds began to shuffle to form the two lines required for assembly, a figure crossed my path. I watched in slow-motion as white, manicured fingers closed over the boy's hands. Kelly Prescott tossed her honeyed curls over her shoulder, before shooting one venomous, victorious look at me. She'd gotten there first. It _so _figured.

I didn't see any more of the beautiful boy – or of Kelly Prescott, for that matter – until lunchtime. As we were dismissed from third period I headed, as always, towards the music room. The brassy letters "Room 201 – Mr. Petrelli" – were faded now, but I would know them anywhere. This was the place that made every other second of being in this hellhole worthwhile.

"Suze!" I was greeted warmly by Mr. P as I came through the door. He _never_ ventured to the cafeteria at lunch, preferring his own food, though I never saw the giveaway brown bag. "How did it go?" Mr. Petrelli, my own personal sunshine, was the only person besides Cee-Cee, Adam and my mom who I had told about my stint at the Hind Leg club. He had almost been mentoring me – his Obi-Wan to my Luke Skywalker – for the six months it had taken me to reach the top of the waiting list.

I pulled a face as I straddled a plastic chair and took out my lunch. "The actual performance was a bit of a nightmare," I replied, and I watched as Mr. P's expression drooped a little. "But then I got this." I took out Paul's business card, which now had one corner creased thanks to my mom's inept handling, and pressed it into his palm. I was glad to see that he considered it just as I had being doing as soon as I had returned home Saturday night – like it was the Holy Grail.

"An A&R rep?" Mr. Petrelli sounded, as I had hoped, impressed. "Nice work, Simon." He handed it back to me. "But you know, you gotta be careful with these music types." Ugh. Was he in cahoots with my mother? "They're generally all talk and no action."

"Not Paul," I blurted out before I could stop myself. God, was I that infatuated already? I was pathetic. I cleared my throat, trying to backtrack. "I mean, he seemed like a decent guy." Mr. P shrugged and gave me a look that kinda stung. Almost like he didn't trust me.

"You know," he said, and he struck out an arm dramatically. "I got offered a record contract once. A million-dollar deal. I could have been a star." I snorted. "What, you don't believe me?" I shook my head, chewing my sandwich, and he dropped the act. "Well, it was a _really _good dream." He walked away, back to his desk, and I continued with my lunch, dwelling on everything. Everybody I had spoken to so far about my run-in with Paul had brushed it aside, like having a career in music was the stuff of fairy tales – like it couldn't really happen. They had all been so excited for me and my fifteen minutes of fame at the Open Mic night, but now it had amounted to something, nobody was cheering me on. Even Cee-Cee and Adam, who I had told excitedly during homeroom this morning, had exchanged sceptical glances.

I finished my lunch and stowed my Tupperware back in my bag, before reaching for one of the school's guitars. It felt cold and foreign in my arms, but it was good enough. I could never risk bringing my own instrument to school.

A few strums in, however, and I was interrupted by the sound of the door opening. I looked up in surprise to see the new boy, arm-in-arm with Kelly peering in. I stopped playing immediately. Even Mr. Petrelli rose from his desk, as if in my defence.

"Susie!" Kelly's voice suggested astonishment, but I knew from the look on her face that she had been counting on seeing me here, as if the sight of me bent over a guitar made me an automatic dork to the stranger she was with now. "I was just showing our new student Jesse here some other parts of the school."

"Likely story," I growled under my breath. Jesse's eyebrows lifted in amusement, but apparently Kelly hadn't caught it.

"I volunteered to take care of Jesse," she continued, her sugar-sweet simper beginning to boil my blood. "So you know, don't worry about it or anything." In other words, _he's mine, back off. _So she'd caught me looking. Well, who could blame me? Up close and personal, Jesse was more attractive than before. I could see now his minor features, like a chalk-white scar that intersected his charcoal eyebrow, and the perfect, curled arc of his eyelashes. His dark eyes flashed dangerously as he spotted me surveying his handsome face. I looked away, blushing.

"We'll be going now," Kelly announced, and the tight hold she had on Jesse's muscular upper arm tightened as she flashed me one last sarcastic smile. "See you around, Susie." She went to pull Jesse out of the music room, but he remained still, his eyes still on me. His midnight stare unnerved me, but the flush I felt creeping up my neck was more comfortable than the sparks that had flew up my back the previous weekend with Paul. I felt more in control – more like myself. With Paul I had been a nervous, giggling fan-girl, hardly capable of words.

"Jesse?" Kelly's voice rose another octave as she tugged his arm again. "Let's go." Her speech this time was more like a question. The usually unmoving self-confidence that reigned supreme over her features had faltered.

"Actually," Jesse said, and the fingers I had wrapped around the neck of the guitar trembled as his low, luxurious voice rumbled through me. His accent, as hinted at by his colouring, was a little Spanish. His English, however, was flawless. "I think I'm going to…" He stopped, and I found my voice catching in my throat as I anticipated his next words. He was going to… what?

But then he glanced around the room – at Mr. Petrelli, at me, at the small assembly of AV geeks who were bickering over a speaker, and then finally at Kelly – and shook his head, as if clearing it of all the fog that had been gathering in his mind. "Never mind," he said, and one corner of his gorgeous mouth turned up in a half-smile. "We still have the rest of the school to see, _si_?" The poise was back on Kelly's face in a snap second.

"Definitely, _amigo_," Kelly replied, as she led him out of the room and out of sight. I guess I was still staring at the door – most probably lusting after the perfect Hispanic idol who had very nearly stayed in the room with me, I could feel it. It was only Mr. Petrelli's warm hand on my shoulder that pulled me from my reverie.

"Suze?" he asked, and he followed my stare to the door. "Are you O.K?"

I nodded, wordlessly, and stood up, replacing the guitar on the wall. "Sure," I answered, finally. I reached into my jean pocket and pulled out the business card. "Mr. P, do you have a phone in this room?"

"Yeah. Dial 9 to get outside the school." He surveyed me unsurely. "Why…?"

I shrugged, trying to appear cool. "No reason," I said, the weight of the card ten times heavier in the palm of my hand. I smiled. "I just have to make a call."


	3. It Happened in Monterey

It took him seventeen rings to answer, I counted. And for every single ring, I had a different way of greeting him – each new one was too high, or too low, too formal, too colloquial. I was completely caught off guard when he did eventually pick up the receiver. And by the time he'd finished introducing himself, my mind had gone blank of everything I'd prepared anyway.

"Hi there, this is Paul Slater, a representative of the Artists and Repertoire department here at Juice, Incorporated. May I ask who is speaking?"

My lips had gone numb, and the first line I mumbled was completely incomprehensible. "Yes, Suze, I'm Simon. Er, Suze. Suze Simon. Suze Simon!" I shook my head, inwardly cursing. If he hadn't hung up after all of that, it would be a miracle.

There came a throaty chuckle. "Susannah Simon? From Saturday night?" Hallelujah!

"Yes!" I gave a sigh of relief, before instantly melting into a puddle of teenage girl goo. I had no idea what to say next. My mind was boggled – filled with cheesy chat-up lines I'd overheard from Brad that just _would not _be acceptable in this situation. I pressed my lips shut and tried to push them all to the back of my mind, praying that one wouldn't slip out of its own accord. "I was wondering if we could talk?"

Thank God for something normal.

Paul's voice sounded a little smug as he replied. "Ah," he said. "So I was right. You couldn't resist me." He had that right. "Well, sure. We can talk." There was a pause, and I glanced back at Mr. Petrelli, who was scuttling around in the classroom, setting up for his next lesson. I wondered if he could hear our conversation. "How soon can you be in Monterey?"

I pulled a face as I saw students begin to make their way back into the main school building, ushered by Sister Ernestine and several other nuns. Lunchtime was clearly over, and I was due in next period. My stomach did a somersault as Sister Ernestine came closer to the window, and I ducked out of sight, the phone still clutched to my ear.

"Suze?" A shiver ran down my back as Paul spoke my name.

"Um." I re-adjusted the handset before I made up my mind. "I can be there by two."

-x-

I blew off the rest of the afternoon. It was easy enough, once I had made sure the hawkeyed Sister Ernestine was out of sight. I'd skipped lessons occasionally – despite my faultless report card, I was hardly a model student – for female reasons, or due to the fact that Brad was skipping, and I wouldn't have had a ride home come half past three if I hadn't have left with him . But today I was skipping for completely selfish reasons.

And it felt _good._

The bad side was, of course, that I'd had to walk all the way home – seeing as Dopey and Doc were still in school, and I didn't have the keys to the Land Rover – but I managed that in twenty minutes, despite the blistering heat. A quick change of shoes – because I had enough blisters already with my mules – and I was on my way to Monterey in my mom's Volvo faster than you could say Paul Slater.

It was stupid how excited I was. I had fantasies already of the two of us being snapped by some paparazzi and the pictures appearing on a gossip site and in every magazine in the country. After all, Paul was pretty famous, I learned after our first encounter that Saturday night. On the first page of _Just Jared _there were three different articles of him appearing on the red carpet of glitzy events I couldn't even begin to remember the name of.

I arrived in Monterey fifteen minutes early, zooming past the Welcome sign with my heart in my mouth. I found a space in a parking lot and practically ran to where I was supposed to be meeting him. To my relief, he was already there, coffee in hand, which he handed me with a nonchalant smile.

"It's good to see you again," he said, and he grazed my cheek with a finger. My cheeks – which were already pink from the running – burned with embarrassment. He placed a protective arm around my shoulder – cue more mortifying spasms of the heart – and led me into a small café with a view over the bay. The place was nearly empty, which made me suddenly nervous.

"You said you wanted to talk," Paul reminded me, but thankfully he didn't leave me to explain. He probably knew as well as I did that anything that would come out of my mouth would be incoherent. "About Juice, Incorporated, I'm assuming?" I managed to nod, just once. He grinned. "Great, Susie. That's great."

The casual slip in of the nickname from my mom that I detested didn't even bother me. I sat there across the table from him besotted, unable to take my eyes off him. He continued to talk and I watched with a fluttering heartbeat how his perfect lips formed every word.

Halfway through Paul's speech, a waitress appeared at our side, clutching a notepad. I half-expected her to hand it to Paul to autograph, but instead she asked, her perky ponytail flicking from side to side as she spoke, "Can I take your order?" Paul turned to me first.

"What would you like to drink, Susie?" Again with the Susie, but I didn't mind. I opened my mouth, but the inside was dry. So instead I lifted up the untouched coffee cup Paul had greeted me with, and he pressed two fingers to the side. "It's cold!" he exclaimed, shaking his head at me. He turned to the waitress. "Two sodas, please." And he wafted five dollars at her before I could even reach for my purse.

"No worries, Suze," he said as I sat there, stunned. "I'm looking after you now." I blushed. "So what do you think about joining our label?" His eyes were on me, his eyes flashing like fire. My voice was unsteady.

"Are you serious?" I asked, eyes wide. "I mean, I'm just Suze Simon. From Carmel-by-the-Sea. What would a big corporate business like Juice want with me?" The corners of Paul's mouth lifted up in an easy smile.

"Oh, Susie," he said, and he reached across the table for my hand. I flinched at his cool touch, heart working over time. I even couldn't help thinking _Oh my God. He _touched _me! _"We want you because you're a very special girl." My eyebrows rose in disbelief despite the cliché. "We could make you very famous."

And with those six little words, visions of my future flashed before me. Sold-out concerts, duets with teen heartthrobs, a designer wardrobe to _die _for…

"Really?" My voice rose several octaves higher than its usual tone, and about a million higher than Paul's low rumble. I blushed. "You really mean that?" Paul squeezed my fingers.

"Of course," he murmured. "I can't wait to work with you. You're the next big thing, I really believe you." Eyes still level with mine, he stretched further to tangle a hand in my hair. "Join the label, Susie."

Unsurprisingly, my voice was pretty much gone when I spoke next. "My mom…" were the only two words I could force out. I was a mess – a pile of crushed-out girl pieces. I didn't recognise myself at all. I had never been this much of a fan-girl before…

"Your mom," Paul echoed, thoughtfully. "Will be no problem. She'll recognise your potential, I promise." Paul made a promise to _me_…

"But-" I started to argue, but Paul pressed a finger to my lips to silence me. Disentangling his fingers from my hair, he caressed my cheek.

"Susie, Susie," he said, soothingly. "Just promise me you'll try and convince her, O.K?"

And that was it, really. There was no other choice. Not with him looking like that within such close vicinity, and his fingers on my skin. I couldn't argue with him.

So instead, I said, "Of course. I promise."

And I really meant it. I would have promised him anything.


	4. The Great Escape

I arrived home to find no-one had missed me in my absence. My mom was sat at the kitchen table with notes ready for her next broadcast, as Andy was frying something in a pan, humming. None of my stepbrothers were in sight as I swung through the front door, to my immense relief. I figured I didn't need any of them interrogating me as to where I'd been.

Without a word to either my mom or to Andy in the kitchen, I slunk upstairs, whispering quietly to myself in an attempt to fabricate a persuasive speech. I _had _to make them let me join Paul's agency, I _had_ to. My encounter with Paul today had left me breathless, and wanting more. If I had had any addictions beforehand – to caffeine, to TV – they were nothing now. I had a new craving. For him.

"So Mom, I really think it would benefit everybody involved…"

"Hey, truant." My plans were interrupted in the form of Brad, who blockaded the top of the stairwell, his bulky body meaning there was no way for me to squeeze past him. I stopped, hand on hip, and scowled. "Does Mom know you cut class this afternoon?"

"No," I said, shortly, not even bothering to deny it. "And it's going to stay that way, thanks." I moved to climb the stairs again, but my stepbrother spoke again, this time with an expression on his face that I didn't like one bit.

"Why did you go?" he asked me, eyebrow cocked. "Was it to see your _boyfriend_?" He knew as well as I did that I didn't have a boyfriend, and exactly who I'd been to see. I hated that I was so predictable to him.

"I don't have a boyfriend," I replied, trying to look nonchalant. "So there – wrong answer, you leave with nothing, thanks for playing." I came face-to-face with him. "Will you move, _please_?" He ignored me.

"You went to meet Paul," he stated, blowing his protein-shake breath into my face. I grimaced in disgust, and stepped down a stair, fed-up with this game. Who did he think he was, my mother? "You went to meet Paul," Brad repeated. "Didn't you?"

I sighed. "If I tell you the truth, will you let me pass?" I asked, and he nodded slowly, like the big fat dumb jock he was. I put on a smile, the idea already forming in my head. "Alright then," I said. "I went-" I raised my leg. "to…" I wound it back, and dealt him a blow between the legs. "Sucker," I finished, and I stepped aside as he fell to his knees, hands cupping the offending area. One to Suze; Brad, zilch.

Ignoring his whines of agony, I locked myself in my room and turned on the laptop Doc had left in there from when he was showing me the various species of woodpecker. Like I had been listening at all to that conversation.

Signing in to IM, I saw there was only one person online. But that one person was enough for me.

**PaulSlater: **_Have you asked her yet?_

Fingers trembling, it took me a while to respond.

**SUZE88: **_Not yet. I'm practising in the mirror first, ha, ha._

O.K, that was lame. And apparently, Paul didn't find it funny either.

**PaulSlater has logged off.**

Fine. I closed down the laptop and started on my homework, wondering what I'd missed in the two lessons I'd cut. My mind continued to wander as I robotically continued from Geometry to American History, hands working of their own accord as I searched my mind for images of Paul – Paul in his BMW, Paul that night at the back of the open mic club…

There was a knock on my bedroom door suddenly, and I jumped out of my reverie. Glancing at my clock I saw that I'd been doing homework for nearly two hours, and the sky outside had turned from a pleasant cornflower blue to a darker, sultry Persian. Evening was rolling in fast, and I still hadn't brought up the subject of Paul again with my mom.

"Come in," I called, and I placed my History essay to one side. Appearing at the door was my mom, who looked a little tentative as she pushed it open. "What's the matter, Mom?"

"There's a boy for you at the front door," she answered, and the expression on her face was one of surprise, as if in a normal world no boy would be calling for me. I had to admit, however, that I too was a little amazed. No boy even looked my way unless they had dropped something and I was standing by it, or they needed help with their schoolwork.

"Oh," I said, and I climbed off my bed, following her downstairs. As we rounded the corner to face the hallway below, my heart started pounding fervently. Was it…? Could it be…?

"Suze," Paul greeted me with a silky hand, encompassing my fingers with it and clinging on just a little bit longer than necessary. My heart fluttered, and watched in astonished silence as he turned to greet my mother. "Mrs. Ackerman, I presume," he said, and he kissed her hand. I couldn't believe he'd _kissed _her hand, much less remembered the fact that she was remarried. He was really pulling out the stops.

"What are you _doing _here?" I hissed at him as my mother led him into the living room, babbling about the house's history like the incompetent fool Paul had made us both. "Did you drive all the way from Monterey?"

"Suze, Suze," he only said, and he took the seat my mom offered him, along with a glass of water. "Mrs. Ackerman," he continued, and my mother flushed at the sound of her name. "I'm here to talk about your daughter. She's extraordinarily talented."

I blushed enormously, despite the fact that he had told me this himself only this afternoon. My mother stuttered with her words, only managing a faint "B-b-b-b…" before resorting to her husband for help. "Andy!"

My stepfather appeared in the doorway, holding a spatula dripping melted cheese. His eyes widened as he spotted Paul, and my mother gestured wildly for him to join us. I stuck my face in my hands, groaning at the mortification my family was causing me.

"You must be Mr. Ackerman," Paul acknowledged smoothly, and he reached inside his pristine jacket to slide a business card across the coffee table. "I'm Paul Slater, A&R representative at Juice, Inc., a local record label." My mom inspected the card briefly before passing it to Andy.

"I know who you are," she said, simply, and Andy intervened. "Yes!" he cried, tossing the card back onto the table. "Suze made a great song and dance of showing that business card you gave her to everyone in the neighbourhood…"

Oh. My. God.

Paul exchanged glances with me in amusement, and I gave him an apologetic smile. I had to give him some credit. If he still wanted me to join his label even after meeting my parents, he was truly a hero.

"I'm glad for her enthusiasm," Paul said, and I forced a smile in the direction of my mom. "I can only hope you two feel the same way about Susannah's potential career in the music industry."

"No," my mom argued at once, and she slammed a hand down on the coffee table. "Absolutely not. She has school!"

"We can provide tutors in the studio in between recording sessions, and backstage on the set when she's touring, if Susannah is unable to attend her current school," Paul offered. "But there will not be many occasions when she cannot attend school like any other normal seventeen year old." Ugh. He knows my age.

My mom faltered, but Andy still had plenty of gas. "That's what you say," he began, "but can we hold you to it? Susannah has college applications, and they're far more important than a maybe popstar career." _Popstar?_ Ew.

"Andy, please-" I tried to intervene, but both my mother and stepfather held up open palms to silence me.

"That's final, Susie," my mother said, sternly. "You're not joining this young man's record label this year. Maybe after you've finished school, and maybe gotten a degree and you're out on your own somewhere…" I stood up, indignantly.

"I can't believe you won't even give Paul a chance!" I cried, and I tore out of the room, wiping away hot, childish tears with an embarrassed hand. It was stupid I was crying, but the prospect of never being within close proximity of Paul Slater – suave, smooth, sensual Paul Slater – made me simultaneously furious and devastated. I couldn't imagine it.

"Suze." Paul had chased after me, and his warm, soft fingers closed around my wrist to hold me still. My face reddened at the fact that he was seeing me crying, but he didn't acknowledge it out loud. Instead he laced his fingers with mine and kissed my fingertips quickly. "Suze," he said again, and I was instantly enticed by his urgent tone. "Be ready at midnight, with a packed bag. I'll come for you, and you can join Juice, Inc. with your parents' permission or not."

I gazed at him with wide eyes. "Really?" I gasped, and Paul nodded.

"You're eighteen in a few months, anyway," he said with a shrug. "And then you can sign your own contract." I could have thrown my arms around his neck and kissed him.

"Thank you," I breathed, and Paul smiled.

"Be ready at midnight," he warned me, and I nodded, exhilarated.

I would be ready long before then.

-x-

I sat on the roof, stuffed duffel bag to my left and stared as the silvery moon reflected off the red dome of the Basilica down by the school. It was my favourite view of Carmel, a view I had admired for as long as I had lived in the town, and before tonight, I was convinced that no view could top it.

Until I saw Paul's shiny BMW crawl silently round the corner into the cul-de-sac, and lie in wait on the edge of my driveway.

I scrambled off the rooftop and back in through my bedroom window, the soles of my shoes scuffing the cushion on the window seat. As stealthily as I could I crept across the landing, avoiding all the spots I knew that creaked and slid down the stairs till I hit the hallway.

Then came my biggest challenge.

Max, the family dog, lay stretched across the front door like a welcome mat, breathing in with a whistle and exhaling with a growl. Whilst it was extremely hilarious, I knew that if I put a foot wrong he would wake up in an instant and alert everyone to my plan. I was going to have to do this carefully.

In other words, through the back door.

Tip-toeing down the hallway to the kitchen, I slid open the door and crept through the kitchen, adjusting the weight of my duffel bag as I did so. I hadn't packed lightly – I wasn't exactly sure how long I would be gone – and it felt like it was getting heavier by the minute.

But suddenly everything felt weightless as I turned the key of the back door and released myself into the cool night air, finally free from the restraints of my house and everyone who lived there. I gave a little hop of celebration before quickly sprinting round the side of the house to the driveway, where Paul lay in wait with a smug smile as wide as my own.

"Congratulations," he said. "You're now on your way to stardom."

And as we pulled away and I got one last good look at 99, Pine Crest Road, I couldn't help hoping he was right.


	5. Face the Music

****

Thanks for all the reviews! I'm sorry this has taken FOREVER to be updated. More regular updates, I promise. I'll try, anyways. Enjoy!

* * *

"Honey, please come home."

Well, it didn't take them that long to find me.

I suspected Brad most of all. At a first glance, he was only a grape-coloured wrestler, with brains that couldn't even fill an eggcup. But I was beginning to suspect he was more the eavesdropping, secret agent in the works type. And it was thoroughly pissing me off.

"No," I replied, and with some unconcealed conceit I crossed my arms over my chest the way my mom had the day she refused an interview between me and Paul. I was in control now, and I was beginning to like it. "No, Mom. I won't come home. I want to be here, and I want to make music with Paul."

Brad, who was stood to my mother's left, made a gagging noise, but a swift nudge in the ribs dealt by Andy silenced him pretty quickly. My mom wasn't giving up quite so easy, however.

"Susannah." She formed my whole name with tight lips and a crinkle between her brows formed as she frowned. "I am your mother. And I'm taking you home right now." I had anticipated this. I'd also spent three and a half hours the night before building up my argument.

"I'd only be back here in a few months anyway," I returned. "When I'm eighteen, you can't do anything to stop me. Please, Mom. Don't make me resent you for the rest of my life for placing me months behind in my music career." I was impressed, I had to say. My words were far more effective out loud than in my head.

"Well, I…" My mother was crumbling, and in my head I punched the air triumphantly. "Susannah, I really don't think it's best for you to do that right now. I mean you have school…"

Already thought that one out. "I've got my SAT scores, Mom," I said. "That's all I really need. They can always send me my high school diploma in the mail." I had to win. I mean, it's not like they could just drag me all the way from L.A back to Carmel.

Andy placed a hand on my mother's shoulder as her face showed her surrender. "Now see here, Suze," he began, but then the door to my hotel room – which is where this whole intervention thing was taking place – opened and Paul's face appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Suze," was all he said, but my heart pretty much melted anyway.

"How did you get in?" Andy demanded, and Paul held up the key-card innocently.

My mom released an anguished wail before letting her head sink into her hands. "He has a key," she moaned. "He has a key, Andy!"

Andy's brow furrowed and he stood up, furiously. "Suze, we wash our hands of you," he announced, and my mom looked up in surprise. "I'm serious. You want to be a popstar, with your little manager boyfriend?" He tossed a dirty look at Paul, and I blushed. "That's fine with us."

My mom stuttered a feeble argument. "Andy," she said, quietly. "I don't really think…" But Andy was adamant.

"It's now or never, Suze," he said, in a low voice. "You come with us now, or we leave you forever."

I glanced at Paul worriedly, and his icy eyes met my gaze and held it, the way they had the very first time I met him. I was transported there instantly, the night he had handed me his card and the way he had made me feel. I couldn't give this up now. Not when it was going to be so amazing.

"I'm staying," I replied, with all the stubbornness I could master.

"Fine." Andy's voice was hard, and my hands trembled slightly as I buried them into my pockets. But I had to stick to my resolve. He got to his feet, strong hands reaching for my mother's much smaller ones and he led the entire family out of the room. It was only David, my youngest stepbrother, who thought to glance back worriedly at me before the door closed. The silence left in their presence was overwhelming.

"Suze?" Paul asked, from the doorway, and my lip began to wobble uncontrollably. "Are you O.K?"

They'd left me to it, just like I'd wanted.

So why wasn't I feeling any better?

I wasn't looking any better either, apparently, as Paul stepped into the room completely and enveloped me in a hug. I had to admit, it was kind of surprising. But nice, especially as I could inhale his suave, sophisticated scent without looking creepy. I buried my nose deep into his suited shoulder, and he smelt as divine as ever.

"They're gone," I mused, and Paul stroked my head gently. This form of affection was new for us, but I didn't mind one bit. I drank it up, trying to burn every second into my permanent memory.

"You don't need them," he replied, soothingly. "You've got more talent than any of them, especially that stepbrother of yours. I mean, what is he? A grape?" At that moment, I loved him more than ever, and began to sniffle in a half-laugh, half-cry kind of thing.

"See?" Paul asked, and he laughed – a deep, reverberating laugh – at the sound I was making. "You know I'm right." He let go of me, and I reluctantly stepped away back into the cold air of my room. "Please don't cry, Susie."

And with that, my tears stopped. I rubbed my cheeks dry as Paul reached for my hand and squeezed it.

"Don't cry," he said again. "You have me now."

* * *

In LA, Paul was more famous than ever. All he had to do was venture off the floor of the hotel we were staying on and he would instantly have ten or twenty photographers in his face. I wasn't exactly surprised that I hadn't heard of his celebrity status before. Nothing about the glamorous world of Hollywood ever made it to Carmel. The last celebrity Kelly and Debbie were gossiping about was Britney Spears, for God's sake. And she's been around forever.

So with Paul's fame in mind, I was a little trepid about going out to dinner with him the evening after my family had left. He'd offered it as a treat to cheer me up, but I wasn't exactly sure how much dining we'd get round to doing. Relentless flashes of white light in your line of vision tend to spoil your appetite.

Still, I dressed up nice – because who wants to be printed in a gossip rag looking like a tramp? – and waited patiently for Paul to come and collect me at seven o'clock, as arranged. He looked dazzling in his dress shirt, the dark olive shade illuminating his gorgeous tan. With a surprisingly jealous pang, I wondered how many women worked at his record label.

I also wondered how many actually worked there for their love of music.

He took my hand, his large brown fingers encompassing my own protectively, and he led me downstairs in silence. I mentally prepared for the onslaught of paparazzi – I'd only observed them from afar before, now it was time to face the music – and counted down in my head for the elevator doors to open.

PING!

Immediately I was greeted with a white light. I'd always been taught _don't go into the light! _but Paul dragged me into it without a word, and I trailed helplessly behind, trying to ignore the deafening shouts of reporters.

"Who's the mystery girl, Slater? Your latest squeeze?"

"Looks more like his daughter if you ask me."

"What's your name, honey? Give us a smile!"

In spite of myself I found my mind wandering to a world where I _was _Mrs. Paul Slater, executive of Juice, Inc. as well as multi-platinum recording artist. I had a diamond-encrusted wedding ring and designer clothes, and my hair was always twisted up into whatever sophisticated style was the fashion…

"Suze?"

We were sat in the limo now, and there was a gentle tinkling of classical music in the background that I was only just aware of. Paul was staring at me pointedly, and I realised he had been speaking to me.

"Yes?" I asked innocently. I prayed I wasn't blushing.

"Penny for your thoughts," Paul said, with a grin. That definitely coloured my cheeks, and I shook a veil of hair between our faces.

"Oh, nothing," I replied quickly, faking nonchalance. "I was just thinking how weird it was that the paparazzi thought we were _together_." I even snorted delicately, though I didn't think there was anything ridiculous about the idea. It sounded like a dream come true.

"I know," Paul answered, and he stretched his arms above his head. "They're always fixing me up with someone or other. It spoils the magic if they just print we have a professional relationship, right?" I nodded, my heart sinking. "Thank God I don't have to worry about any romance crap with you, right Suze?"

"Right," I agreed, nodding again.

Thank the Lord. Hallelujah.

Not.


	6. Surprise!

A/N: To those of you who have your own Kelly Prescott: do something about it _now_.

**

* * *

**

KICK ASS, NOT KISS ASS!

I yanked down another one of my personal Post-Its I had plastered to my mirror as Paul sat on my bed with a pile of documents on his lap. His voice may have been as smooth as the eiderdown he was strewn across, but I couldn't help tuning him out. For the past few days it had all been business, business, business.

Or, you know. Blah blah blah.

"So on Monday you have interviews with Regis and Kelly, Tyra Banks and Ellen DeGeneres…" Woah. That, I have to admit, caught my attention. As far as I knew, nobody did three interviews on one day, no way.

"And then on Tuesday you have a press conference with the rags..." He looked up. "What's that look for?" I looked away, embarrassed. And pretended I hadn't been imagining running my hands through his hair.

"Um," I said, and I started fussing absent-mindedly with the perfume bottles and hairbrushes on my dressing table. "You know, just the enormity of it all." I gulped, for extra impact. "Three interviews in one day?" Before I knew it, Paul had materialised behind me, and placed his hands on my arms in an affectionate gesture.

"Every chat show host in America is gagging for you, Suze," he said, and he was so close I could feel his low voice rumble through his whole body. "We've had to turn people _down_ to fit everything in." I raised my eyebrows. "It's like I keep telling you, Susie, you're a-"

"I'm a star," I finished, and for the first time, I actually believed it. I was a star! I had Ellen DeGeneres and Tyra Banks fighting for my free time!

"Now," Paul continued, as I tried to stop envisioning the catfight going down inside my head. "I have a little surprise for you, try not to freak out."

_I love you, Suze. I have from the moment I met you _was what I had been expecting.

Oh, O.K. Hoping. In my wildest daydreams, that was what happened on a regular basis. I even started to picture Paul taking me into his arms and moulding his beautiful soft lips to my own…

"Here." Instead of taking my hands, he placed something cold, hard and shiny into it instead. I looked down to see my own, albeit slightly airbrushed, face staring back at me and nearly shrieked, jumping three feet into the air.

It was my _E.P_!

The last couple of weeks had been a blur of recording studio after recording studio, with the occasional blip or two in a rehearsal room ready for my live performances this week. If my life was a movie, there would have been a cute little montage to cut it down into a minute and a half of videotape, with my song _M.I.A _playing in the background, instead of the hours and hours it took instead. But now those days I'd spend singing my heart out actually meant something as I grasped my C.D tightly.

"Oh my God!" I cried, my voice actually cracking a little. "It's my… It's my…"

"So?" Paul asked carefully, as I stared wide-eyed at the big glossy photo of me on the front. "How does it feel?"

"It feels…" My mouth ran dry. "It feels…" I smiled. "It feels like the first time I ever saw you, that day at the Hind Leg." Paul returned my smile uneasily, though some caution shadowed his eyes.

"You aren't going to shout at me and insult me again, are you?" he proceeded, and I shook my head. I deposited my EP on the table beside me and just as haphazardly threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tight.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I whispered, my voice breathless in his ear. "This is all down to you. If you hadn't have forced your way into my dressing room that night and-"

"…and dazzled you with my overwhelming charm?" Paul finished, amusedly, and I bowed my head so he wouldn't see my blush. "Well, you're not entirely blameless, you know. You're pretty fantastic…" He placed his thumb beneath my chin, and for one magical moment I thought he was going to kiss me…

But instead he clucked me under the chin, as if I was a five year old brandishing a sticky, gluey Christmas card I'd made in kindergarten. And although the rush of pheromones I felt every time Paul tossed an icy blue glance my way made me feel like a pre-teen, I didn't exactly feel _that _young. And I didn't want to be treated that young either.

"Congratulations," he said, and he rubbed my arm like we were old pals. I mumbled something incoherent back ungraciously, and fiddled with my perfume bottles again. Congratulations, schmongratulations. I wanted my kiss.

* * *

"Two minutes till you're on, Suze." Paul poked his head through the curtain of my dressing room and smiled at me, his blue eyes sending my insides out. Oh, God. "Are you O.K?"

"Sure," I said, taking a large gulp of icy water and nearly sending it all over him as my throat violently rejected it. "I'm, er, fine. You know, just about to go live to millions of people. I'm peachy."

Needless to say, I was not peachy. I was somewhere between collapsing in a heap of nerves on the floor and throwing something at my door. Oh, my door! It actually read my name, albeit in smeared marker pen. But I'd had a mini spaz attack at the sight of it, squealing like the little girl I was.

Paul had found it adorable.

"You'll be great," Paul assured me, and he ruffled my hair. "You're great, you look great, your music is great. You're going to rock, I just know it." I smiled absently and straightened my hair from where he'd mussed it. "One minute thirty," he reminded me, before disappearing again.

I was good to go now. Paul had given me a boost, how he always did, filling me with some kind of white light that made me feel like I was invincible. I felt like I was floating on air as I made my way through the set and to the stage where I was to sit in a stupidly uncomfortable chair and answer questions I really didn't want to reply to about my love life.

"And we're on, in five, four, three…" The camera-man mouthed silently the rest of his countdown, and the lights dimmed to swing a spotlight on me. The chat-show host – a middle-aged crazy with purple streaks in her hair – started gabbing animatedly to me like we were instantly best friends, and it was all I could to nod.

"So is there someone special in your life?" My heart plummeted to somewhere halfway down my stomach at this question, and my eyes flickered automatically to Paul, who was stood at the side with the grin he always wore when he was trying to be polite. I knew he wasn't really listening. Which was just as well, really, considering what I said next.

"Well," I began, my lips forming words of their own accord. "I guess I do have feelings for someone…" An audible buzz ran through the audience, and the host leaned in eagerly for my next sentence. "It's been a long time coming, I suppose, since we've spent so much time together recently…"

Oh my God. I really was going to say it. I was going to declare my feelings for Paul in front of millions of people on TV. Not that that would be too embarrassing, or anything.

"I mean…" My eyes darted offstage again to find Paul. And I did find him, my eyes sliding to absorb all of him to add to my collection of mental images. But what I saw next stabbed me straight through the heart, forcing me to do a double take. I nearly fell of my chair, I was that shocked.

"Suze?" The host narrowed her eyes concernedly at me. "Are you O.K?" It was funny how this was the same question Paul had asked me only minutes ago. Only now I wasn't feeling anywhere close to peachy. I was feeling sick, like I wanted to murder every single person in the room, including Paul.

Because next to him, with her pale, painted fingers reaching out to stroke his designer wool coat, was someone I loathed with every inch of my being. Someone who, as they tossed their honey blonde curls over their shoulder with a simpering, sycophantic snigger, made my blood boil. And apparently, Paul had no problem with her being in such close vicinity.

That's right.

She was there, flirting her face off shamelessly, whilst I watched helplessly.

Kelly Prescott.


	7. Stardust

_A/N: Thank you to everybody who reviewed last chapter! A fulfilled promise for Scorpiongurl (and many others) is waiting halfway down the page._

* * *

"Hi, Susie."

That's what she said. _Hi, Susie._ Like we were bosom buddies.

I swallowed my fury and glanced from me to her, comparing our apparels. She was stood there in Manolo Blahniks – I knew that for a fact, having spent the last few weeks I was in Carmel admiring them from the other side of the window in the mall. I never actually went in though, I mean, malls give me the creeps – with her Polly Pocket sweater set and the halo of white curls springing from her head. And there was me, the layers of cheap make-up that had been slathered on me by the hair and beauty division already dishevelled, and my entire body drenched in sweat from nerves.

Oh, yeah. I know which one I'd choose, too.

"Is Kelly a friend of yours, Suze?" Paul asked me, his eyes sparkling in disbelief. "You've never mentioned her before." Kelly saved me (the term 'saved' is used loosely, I'll admit) by throwing back her little plastic head and laughing that obsequious laugh.

"Oh, Paul!" she cried, and she actually flung out a hand onto his chest. Paul? _Paul? _They were on first-name terms already? "Me and Susie are just about as close as can be. Right, Susie?" The stupid thing was, the obvious way out of this stupid, sadistic routine was right there in front of me. I could have easily said, "Um, no. You hate me, remember?"

But I did not. For reasons I cannot, even to this day, fathom.

"Sure," I said instead. "Me and Kelly go way back."

It took Paul two more double-takes between Kelly and I – again comparing what I had already compared, much to my despair – before he finally let it drop. He shrugged, and even _put his arm around her _before leading the way to the Kraft service table. Really, I should have stopped right then and gone the other way. But, again, I did not.

I know, I know. If I could hire someone to go back in time and shoot me then, I think I would.

"So, Susie," Kelly piped up again, picking somewhat delicately through the grapes in the Kraft fruit salad with her plastic fork. "Who is this guy you said you liked? The one from back home?" With an audible crackle, the plastic Jell-O pot I'd been holding buckled in my fist as I relived the previous ten minutes. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

"_**So is there someone special in your life?" My heart plummeted to somewhere halfway down my stomach at this question, and my eyes flickered automatically to Paul, who was stood at the side with the grin he always wore when he was trying to be polite. I knew he wasn't really listening. Which was just as well, really, considering what I said next.**_

"_**Well," I began, my lips forming words of their own accord. "I guess I do have feelings for someone…" An audible buzz ran through the audience, and the host leaned in eagerly for my next sentence. "It's been a long time coming, I suppose, since we've spent so much time together recently…"**_

_**Oh my God. I really was going to say it. I was going to declare my feelings for Paul in front of millions of people on TV. Not that that would be too embarrassing, or anything.**_

"_**I mean…" My eyes darted offstage again to find Paul. And I did find him, my eyes sliding to absorb all of him to add to my collection of mental images. But what I saw next stabbed me straight through the heart, forcing me to do a double take. I nearly fell of my chair, I was that shocked.**_

"_**Suze?" The host narrowed her eyes concernedly at me. "Are you O.K?"**_

_**I shook my head, but not in answer to her question. With some effort, I tore my eyes off Kelly and Paul and tried to focus again on the TV host. With a sudden pang, I remembered her name was Brenda. Which was unfortunate, I know, but it gave me some kind of distraction. **_

_**My expression must have been kind of blank, as the next thing Brenda did was wave a hand in front of my face. "The person you've been spending so much time with in your life," she prompted, and realisation flooded through my veins. "Somebody special?"**_

_**Who was I kidding? I couldn't shout my feelings for Paul to the rooftop now. Not now he was already fawning over Kelly. I watched hungrily, as his eyes sunk a little too unsubtly down her shirt, and scowled.**_

_**Bitch.**_

"_**Um," I began, unsteadily, and I even coughed to buy me some extra time. "Yeah. There's this guy… in my algebra class," I finished lamely, and the audience sank back in their seats, clearly disappointed that I couldn't provide them with some hot celebrity gossip. The host quickly changed the subject, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.**_

"Oh," I said, hotly, as I dropped the sticky Jell-O mess in my hand into the trashcan. "Just, you know… a guy…"

Right on cue, there was a tap on my shoulder, and simultaneously Kelly's face lit up. I turned around, and just about fainted. Seriously. If my day kept up like this, I was going to have a cardiac arrest.

"Hi," said Jesse.

-x-

"So I hope you don't you mind," Kelly babbled, as she did battle with the many suitcases she had thrown over the spare bed in my hotel room. "About me sharing your hotel suite with you, I mean. My dad totally tried to book me another suite, but there were just, like, none classy enough left, you know? And then I just went 'Well, Dad, if you totally don't care enough about me then that's fine…'"

Blah, blah, blah. I successfully managed to tune it out, and went back to teasing my hair into curls with the tongs. I had enough to worry about tonight, like the fact that I had been cajoled into a double date with Paul and Kelly, and on top of that my date was _Jesse, _ye of the two word sentence and new-boy shininess.

And of the red-hot six pack, by the way. But that wasn't important. Especially as I wanted more than anything to be on the date with Paul, and _not _with Kelly in close vicinity at all.

"_**Hi," said Jesse, and Kelly clapped her hands together with delight.**_

"_**Jesse!" she squealed, and she shoved me out of the way to throw her hands around his neck. The pained expression on his face didn't go unnoticed. "I can't believe you actually came. I mean, when I told you I was vacationing in L.A for Spring Break I didn't think you'd actually come **_**with**_**…" On the word 'with', her voice rose three octaves, and Jesse winced.**_

"_**I thought I would…" He hesitated, and for the first time surveyed Paul with a cocked eyebrow. "… see how the rock 'n' roll lifestyle is going." He winked in my direction, which threw me. Weeks ago, back in that music classroom, he couldn't have been more eager to escape my company. And now he was **_**winking?**

"_**It's awesome." Again, Kelly answered for me, accompanying each syllable with a flick of her hair. "I mean, this is only one TV show, and it's amazing. Amazing!"**_

"_**Speaking of TV shows," I said, acidly. "How did you get in?" She rolled her eyes theatrically, and produced a wallet-sized photo. I narrowed my eyes at it, staring incredulously. It was a snapshot of me and Kelly, one that I had never seen before. In fact, in the picture I was wearing clothes I didn't own, and had my arms thrown around Kelly's neck. It wasn't me at all, not my body. It was Debbie's. Just my face photo-shopped onto it.**_

_**Cle-ver.**_

"_**I flashed this at the door," she explained, waving it around excitedly. Though I was willing to bet she flashed a damn sight more. "And they just let me in. After they saw what good friends me and Susie were, I mean."**_

_**Sure.**_

_**I turned to accuse Jesse, and he looked startled as I thrust my index finger in his face. "And you?" I demanded. "How did you get in?" He grinned, his perfect smile glittering like a set of pearls.**_

"_**Oh, **_**querida**_**," he said, lightly. "You'd be surprised how effective batting your eyelashes can be." **_

_**What did he just call me?**_

"_**Listen, buddy," I said, and I even jabbed his chest with my finger. I guess it must have been all the pent-up irritation about Paul and Kelly exploding from me or something, because even I was a little surprised. "I don't know what you just called me, but I really think you should-"**_

"_**Oh my God!" Kelly squealed, interrupting me completely. "I have just had the most amazing idea ever!" To my surprise, Jesse and I rolled our eyes together. In fact, it was only Paul who paid any attention to her.**_

"_**What, Kel?" Paul asked, whilst I struggled to control my gag reflexes yet again. Kel? **_

"_**A double date," Kelly pronounced, breathlessly. "A double date! Me and you, and Jesse and Suze! It would be totally fantabulous." **_

_**My eyes widened with alarm as Paul turned to see my reaction. "Uh," I said, trying to handle the situation calmly. I mean, I didn't want to hurt Jesse's feelings or whatever, but… "I don't know…"**_

"_**Hush." Kelly even put a finger to my lips. "It's settled."**_

_**And the rest, as they say, is history.**_

"Um, hello. Hi, Suze? Earth to Suze?"

A sharp slap on the side of my face pretty much pulled me from my reverie, and I turned to shoot Kelly a deathstare. I mean, that _hurt._ Though of course, she didn't even notice.

"Oh, thank God," she gasped, though her face didn't look relieved. "I thought I was going to have to call 991 or something." I didn't bother to correct her. I just made a mental note not to give Kelly responsibility in the future of calling emergency services in the case of a crisis.

She nudged me indelicately out the way to apply her lipgloss, and fluffed her hair. Finally, she cast a withering eye over to me and the horror in her gaze said it all. "Oh my God," she breathed, as she plucked at my sweats. "Are you going in _that_?"

I gave a feeble cough – crossing my fingers behind my back, of course – and shrugged. "I'm not exactly feeling great," I lied, and I pretended to test the temperature of my forehead. "I think it must have been something off the Kraft table. I think I might even puke." And I went for the killer – pretending to wretch all over Kelly's silky dress. That got her off my dressing table stool and pretty near the door.

"Ew," she grumbled, and she smoothed her skirt, even though there was nothing on it. "That's gross. Maybe you _should _stay home tonight." I gave an enthusiastic nod, before making a point of sinking onto my bed.

"I feel like crap," I added, helpfully. Kelly closed her clutch with a short snap and surveyed me one last night.

"O.K, then," she said, and adjusted her bag on her shoulder. "I'll give Jesse your apologies." I felt a guilty pang for letting him down, even though I didn't even like him. But it couldn't be helped. There was no way I was going to willingly endure a round of Kelly-on-Paul.

"Have fun," I murmured, before punching the air triumphantly as she closed the door. Yes! I'd convinced her!

-x-

The ten minutes after Kelly had left me were peaceful. I was able to lie down on my bed without having to listen about designer heels or how Mrs. So-and-so had, like, _totally _had botox after her divorce. There was silence, save for my heavy breathing. And it was so serene I could have fallen asleep.

But, of course, this was my life. Which meant that there was soon a knock at my door, causing me to bury my head into my eiderdown pillow and groan.

"Go _away_."

The knock persisted, and I heard a gentle voice whisper just loud enough through the keyhole. "I know you're in there, _querida_."

That got me out of bed quick enough. In fact, I pretty much fell flat on the floor with surprise. What was _Jesse _doing here? I'd sent Kelly to deal with him, hadn't I?

I pulled the door open slowly to see him leaning against the doorframe, a steaming pizza box in one hand and a 2-litre bottle of Dr. Pepper in the other. I was amazed.

"But… but…" I stuttered, and Jesse raised an eyebrow. I was alarmed to find that did something to my heartbeat. Something _bad__**. **_"But I sent Kelly down ten minutes ago!"

Jesse's head dropped. "Yes," he muttered, apologetically, misinterpreting my greeting. "I'm sorry. I would have been here sooner, except the pizza parlour took ages…" He looked sheepish. "But you like pepperoni, _si_?"

I think he could have asked me how I felt about the Mona Lisa and I still would have let him in. It was the nicest thing anyone had done for me for a while – since finishing my EP, Paul had left off a little, accompanying me to my talk shows with only a few words shared every now and again – and it perked me up. I held the door open wider and smiled despite myself.

"Of course," I answered him, and he flashed me that perfect grin again. "But why are you here?"

He set down the pizza box on my bed and propped up the lid, before turning to look at me again. "Because," he said, offering me the first slice like a true gentleman. "I think I'd like to get to know the real Susannah."

I looked questioningly at him. "The real Susannah?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said. "The Susannah behind the stardust."


	8. All By Myself

_A/N:_ I know, I've been a while. But here is Chapter Eight, and I hope you enjoy it.

* * *

"O.K, let me in. I have a surprise for you."

My heart pounded against my ribcage even in my slumber, and it didn't take me long to stir after I heard Paul utter those words. In less than ten seconds I had clumsily swept the length of my hotel room and had my hand on the door handle, breathless. Blood rushed to my head as everything caught up to me, and I opened the door to Paul looking positively drunk.

"Celebrating already, are we?" he said as he came in, and he pretended to scan the room for any signs of booze. "Man. And I was counting on being the first one to tell you."

My brow crinkled in confusion. "What?" I asked, and pulled the bathrobe I had thrown on tighter, self-consciously. "What are you talking about, Paul?" He grinned, flashing me that million-dollar smile that never failed to send shivers down my spine. It was hard to concentrate after that.

"I'm talking about," he replied, as he fished his cell from his pocket and slid his fingers across the keys effortlessly, "about your first Billboard hit. Number 1 – Congratulations." I screamed, a real high pitch shriek, and threw my whole body at him, legs around his waist and all. I clutched him tight because he had made all my dreams come true, and he didn't push me away. Just for that moment, Kelly Prescott did not exist.

"Are you kidding me?" I hopped down from him, flushed, and he placed his cell into my palm, displaying the Billboard Chart's website. I gasped, incredulous. "Number one. _Number one_!"

"You made it, baby," Paul whispered, and he pulled me into another hug. "Maybe now we can get you out of this hotel room and into a real pad. The label's gotta see you were worth signing now."

"My own place," I mused, grinning. "My own Number One record…"

"Is there nothing you don't have?" Paul joked, and I had to turn my face away to hide my expression.

Because I didn't have him.

Oblivious, Paul slung the bag he held over his shoulder off his arm and handed it to me. "If everything else wasn't enough, you also have your very own fan mail." The bag was weighty in my arms, and I was surprised. I'd been a star for two seconds – I had _fans_?

"'Dear Suze'," I read aloud. "You're the coolest. Please come to Pennsylvania."

"All in time," Paul replied, and he picked up another letter. "'Hey Susie, I think you're just beautiful. In fact, I really want to…'". He gave a low whistle, and folded the letter back down. "Never mind about that one."

"No," I argued, and reached for the letter. "Seriously, what did it say?" Reluctantly, Paul handed the letter over to me, and I got to read it for myself. And was very freaked out.

"That's enough fan mail for today," Paul decided, and I sat light-headed onto the bed. "Suze, don't let it freak you out too much. Every great star gets at least a few weirdos writing in. You're too good to stop now."

"I'm not freaked out," I answered, but the uncertainty in my voice gave me away. Paul came to sit next to me, and placed his arm around my shoulder.

"Don't worry," he whispered into my ear. "I'll always protect you, Susie."

And it was at that moment that I knew I was falling in love with him.

* * *

"It's so neat that Paul's taking you out for dinner," Kelly said, as she curled her eyelashes in front of the dressing table mirror. But I could detect a little bit of jealousy in her voice.

Jealous! Kelly! Of me!

"Yeah," I agreed, nonchalantly, as I held two different dresses up to my chest to inspect in the mirror. "Which one, Kel?" I knew for a fact – at least according to the very expensive stylist the label had hired for me – that one was the most popular with the tabloids and runways, etc. But it would be interesting to see which one Kelly decided would be fit for me.

Kelly got to her feet, and inspected me quickly. "That one," she said, pointing at the least-fashionable one. I rolled my eyes and selected the other one. As I was stepping into it – a white babydoll number – I heard Kelly call my name.

"Are these _pizza _stains on my bedclothes?" My stomach did a huge somersault, and I nearly toppled head over heels into the bathtub.

"Um," I said, pulling the zipper. "Yeah, sorry. I felt really sorry for myself last night so I ordered one to myself. Nobody was else here. It was just me. Eating my pizza." I smacked a hand to my forehead. _Nice going, Suze,_ I thought. _Way to be inconspicuous. _

Kelly appeared in the bathroom doorway just as I straightened up. "O.K," she said, and she looked like she believed me. Phew.

I felt bad lying. Not about lying to Kelly, but about Jesse. I did have a good time last night, but it wasn't a date. I'd purposefully left my phone off all morning in case Jesse decided to call, because I couldn't face talking to him. He was a nice guy, and I didn't want to lead him on.

"Nice dress," Kelly muttered, and this time I definitely heard acid in her tone.

* * *

"Another round for the guest of honour," Paul cheered, and he topped my glass of champagne up again. "Wow. We're gonna need another bottle."

"Paul," I whispered, bringing my face close to his, but got too giggly before I could get any words out. "_Paul. _I'm… _drunk_." I took another sip, and marvelled as the room before me swirled and all the pretty colours merged into one. I liked how I felt like I was drifting on air, and didn't have to worry about everything: my feelings for my manager, my bitchy roommate, my messed-up family or my seemingly not-so-secret admirer in Jesse. Everything was peaceful. Bliss.

"I guessed that," Paul chuckled, and he kissed my forehead gently. "You're so adorable when you're off your face, Suze."

"I," I declared, indignantly, "am adorable all of the frickin' time."

"Indeed." Paul took a careful sip of his water, and rubbed my hand. "I brought you here for more than one reason, actually, Suze," he said, and my heart flipped. He was about to declare his love for me. Kelly had just been a ruse to get me jealous, and now he was about to tell me everything…

"I mean, your latest success has really put an urgent spin on this," he continued, and I watched him with wide eyes and a beating heart. _He wants to tell me now before I meet too many admirers_, I thought, and I clutched his fingers desperately. He reached into his bag. _A ring? _He pulled out a roll of paper, and everything came crashing down.

A contract.

"We really need you to get back into touch with your family," Paul jabbered on, and I looked away from him, placing my champagne glass on the table and examining the rest of the restaurant. "It's the legal way, at least."

"No, Paul," I refused. I thought he understood how I felt about my family. He had been the one who had encouraged me to break away from them, held me tight after I had been so upset. What was going on here?

"What?" Paul demanded, like he hadn't quite heard me. "Suze, we need someone to sign this contract." A muscle leapt in his jaw, but he refrained from raising his voice.

"Paul, you _know _how I feel about my family," I said, and I rubbed my head. Nothing like a breaking heart to sober you up. "How can you expect me to just give them a call and ask them to support something that broke us apart?"

"Suze, it's important." He looked at me like I was being unreasonable. "You can't release any more records unless your guardian signs this contract." I stared him out, and he sighed. "Well, I guess we could get you to sign it. I mean, you're nearly 18 anyway, right?"

I shook my head, but not in response in to the question. "Paul, I don't really feel in the right mind to sign a contract right now. Can we wait until the morning when I'm sober and there's a lawyer present?"

This really wound Paul up. "God, Suze!" he cried, and a couple of people turned around wildly and twittered at us. "You really don't get it, do you? This is more important than some TV special or a new lipgloss, or whatever you stupid teenage girls care about most."

"Stupid teenage girl?" I echoed, bewildered. "Paul, some _stupid teenage girl _has just made your label a lot of money with this record."

"It wasn't you," Paul snarled. "It was everybody who looks after you, and cleans up after you when you make a mess out of things. Who do you think covered up the whole family drama and stopped it leaking to the press?" My brow furrowed.

"I don't understand…" I whimpered, but Paul had had enough. He got to his feet, and knocked over my fragile glass of champagne.

"Of course you don't," he said. "Because you're too busy with your tortured artist act and your rivalry with Kelly. You know what? Don't bother even signing the contract in the morning, O.K? We're through."

And before I could argue, he picked up his jacket and made his way out of the restaurant, disappearing into the distant where my beer-goggles couldn't define him from any other person that far away. "Paul," I murmured, but it was too late. And now I was stuck here without someone to pay the bill or take me home.

Except there was someone. Someone I was going to regret calling. But it was my only choice.

I picked up my phone, and found the number. Then pressed Call. He answered after three rings, and I took a deep breath.

"Hey, Jess. It's me."


	9. Stabbed in the Back

"Jesse, _please _say something."

This was the fourth red light we'd sat at in silence, and it was killing me. I would have preferred him just to yell at me and for it to be over already. He'd answered on the third ring, his voice clear and awake even though it was past midnight, and arrived in front of the restaurant a mere ten minutes earlier. He'd even opened the passenger door for me. But now he refused to speak. At all.

"Jesse," I pleaded, and as the light turned he stepped on the gas with a little too panache. I was thinking a little too late that I should have answered at least one of his calls today. "Jesse-"

"Susannah." Jesse sighed, and pressed down on the brake a little. The car slowed at the lights (sheesh, just how many sets of traffic lights _were _there in California?) and he rested his head on the wheel. "Please. I don't really have anything to say."

I twisted in my seat at the outright lie. "I know that's not true," I said. "If you're mad that I screened all your calls today, then I'm sorry, I was just feeling a little-"

But before I could finish, Jesse had turned left at the lights, pulled into a little lay-in on the side of the road and cut the engine. My mouth hung open in the shape of my last syllable, and my forehead crinkled in confusion. Was he kicking me out of the car?

"Susannah," he said again, and I was a little alarmed as to how my heart reacted. It didn't just flutter – it slammed violently into the front of my chest and I had to swallow to ease it. Hard. "This isn't about you screening my calls. This is about how you feel about Paul."

Boom-boom-boom. There went my heart again, with increased force. I swore it was going to burst out of my chest and straight into Jesse's lap.

"What-?" I began, but Jesse was still going.

"How can you let him just _walk _all over you, _querida_?" he demanded, and I had to look away from his dark, penetrating eyes. "He treats you like… well, like a dog. And not even a showdog like Kelly, either!"

"I am _not _a dog," I argued, indignantly. "And Paul doesn't walk all over me. He's my boss; he's _supposed _to tell me what to do." Jesse lowered his voice, and the anger rumbled through me like a seismic wave.

"You don't always have to follow his orders, Susannah," he said. "You need someone who is going to care about _you _and not the money you're making his record company." I felt like I'd been slapped. I was still reeling a couple of seconds later, when my mind was struggling to put the pieces of that sentence together.

"Like who?" I spluttered, which turned out to the stupidest thing possible to say, considering what happened next.

Which was that Jesse had surreptitiously slipped a hand around my neck and pulled me inexplicably towards him.

I won't lie. It was a good kiss. A _good _kiss. His lips were soft and his breath was fresh and cool and was blowing my mind. But my lids lifted for a second to see his tanned arm shift slightly on my shoulder and I found myself wishing it was somebody else's tanned arm resting against me…

And pulled away.

There was a crinkle in Jesse's forehead similar in the one I had in mine as he sat back. "I'm not going to pretend that it was a mistake, Susannah," he said, and I had to refrain from screaming. I was confused; it had been the best kiss I'd ever received – not that I had a varied range of experiences – but I loved Paul. Passionately, heartbreakingly, devastatingly. I had to get out of the car.

"_Querida_!" Jesse called as I opened the passenger door. There was unmistakably hurt in his voice, but I couldn't face talking to him. If I'd had any doubt that avoiding his calls had been a good idea, I was now thoroughly convinced I'd made the right decision. This apparent demonstration of feelings would have been even more agonising over the phone.

"I can't," was all I said to him, and I closed the door on his crushed face. My heart was still left thudding – albeit heavier now than before – as he drove away, and I couldn't help wishing I'd called a cab in the first place. I'd ended up in the same place anyway – abandoned on the sidewalk. Only now I had a much bigger problem to deal with.

-x-

I arrived home to find two empty beds in my hotel room – but I didn't even want to think about where Kelly was. My heart and my pride had taken enough damage that night and all I wanted to do was sleep until I couldn't avoid getting up any longer. About an hour later, when I was still lying awake tormented, Kelly crept in stinking of booze and cigarettes, and the stifled sobbing I'd heard – muffled as it was through the duvet cover – convinced me further that she'd been with Paul. Didn't I know that he could make you feel on top of the world – but just as easily snap your heart in two.

I woke up an indistinguishable amount of hours later, not able to remember actually falling asleep. Kelly's bed was empty again, the duvet crumpled and stained with mascara. And with a pang the previous night came back to me and I realised that I had to make it right with at least somebody. I decided on the least humiliating.

I dressed quickly, pulling on jeans and not exhausting the usual effort I did when I planned on seeing Paul. I had a feeling he wouldn't care what I looked like today – more like what I had to say. And even then, if it wasn't an apology, he'd have limited patience.

I slipped out the hotel room and down the corridor, wringing clammy hands and blowing sweaty bangs out of my face. My pride detested apologies of any kind – particularly alluded to events where I'd been intoxicated – not that there had been many. Only one other time when Cee Cee had fed me too much Bacardi at a slumber party and I'd sat on her mom's prized china. It had taken weeks of grovelling to allow me over there again.

Tentatively I knocked on Paul's door, and my heart leapt when he rumbled, "Coming." Not even my banging head nor his stern expression when he opened the door deterred me. I had to fix this.

"Listen, Paul, I'm really sorry about last night-"

Paul sighed, before opening his door wider. "Come on in."

"I'm sorry for not signing the contract," I began. "I wasn't in my right mind – I was drunk, for God's sake. And I was mad at you for not understanding about my family. I mean, I've just ditched them so I can lead the life they're not happy about. How could I turn back to them and ask them to suddenly support it?" Paul sighed again, and a tired smile played on his lips.

"I'm sorry too, Suze," he said, and he took my hand so he could massage the skin with his callused thumb. "I was being stupid – I thought a bit of alcohol would loosen you up a bit. I know how much this new lifestyle freaks you out."

"I think the banging headache I have right now would argue against 'a bit of alcohol'," I argued, though I couldn't help laughing. "Ugh. I'm such a lightweight." Paul chuckled, and rubbed my shoulder as I massaged my aching head.

"But you're my lightweight," he said. "So it's O.K." I smiled. After feeling so low, I was suddenly on top of the world again. Jesse had been wrong – Paul _did _care about me. Maybe not in the way I hoped he did, but he wasn't just screwing me over for profit.

But the longer we lingered there – with my eyes meeting his and his hand still on my arm – the more I began to doubt even that. Maybe he _did _like me as more than a friend. At least the way he was looking at me then suggested that. And as he leaned in and my heart began to race I began to feel the way I did as I stood before riotous applause – beautifully, wonderfully, blissfully inebriated. Nothing could ruin this now, I thought, as Paul's lips were inches from meeting mine…

And then the fax machine we were both leaning on beeped insolently and spewed out a couple of unidentifiable pieces of paper. Paul jumped like he'd been electrocuted and pressed a button to stop the beeping, and I rubbed my forehead. Oh my God. That had almost been all my dreams come true, but now I had a sickening dread that it was never ever going to happen again.

Especially as the next time Paul turned to me, papers from the fax machine in his hand, he slapped me hard across the face. My cheek burned red hot instantly and I glared in his direction.

"What the _hell _was that for?" I demanded, and he threw the papers at me. With shaking fingers I shook the A3 page straight and with some difficulty focused on the big bold headline at the top of the page.

"How could you be so stupid?" Paul hissed.

**MY SECRET RELATIONSHIP WITH SUSANNAH SIMON!**

Oh my God.

But it got worse. Especially as I read the next line.

**Suze's secret man Jesse De Silva reveals all in this two-page spread.**

The newspaper fell to the floor.


	10. With A Little Help From My Friends

_A/N: Thanks for reviewing, everybody! This chapter is my salvation from a work-filled day. Curse ye, GCSEs! I hope you like this chapter, I think its the beginning of a beautiful friendship..._

_P.S. Don't tell anybody, but I have plans for Pauliestiltskin sequels. If anybody cares. Teehee!_

* * *

"Jesse!"

I banged on the door with my fist till it gleamed raw red. And then I pounded some more.

"Jesse! Open the door now or I swear to God I will kick the goddamn door down!"

I released a roar of anguish and kicked the door for good measure, before doubling over and leaning against the wall opposite number 237. After the revelation that was the article, I'd driven at top speed all the way back to Carmel to interrogate Jesse. I'd only stopped for breath to wake up Kelly from her irritable slumber and ask where he lived.

And where he did live was a while out of the way from where I'd ever been before. I doubted that even Brad or Jake, life-long residents of Northern California, had even ventured this far out of town. It was a place mostly covered by smog, as if the fog rolling in from the bay never quite left, and there were dodgy looking guys on every street corner. I'd made sure I had a firm grasp on my pepper spray before leaving the car.

I stood now in an apartment block deep in the heart of this strange, sprawling neighbourhood. There was a rude message scrawled in indelible ink to my left, the dulcet tones of a heavy hip-hop pulsating from underneath me, and from somewhere in the building, a baby was wailing at top volume. Maybe Jesse hadn't heard my caterwauling.

Or maybe he was just trying to avoid me.

"Jess-" I had raised my fist to slam on the door one final time, before it swung open and I nearly landed flat on my face. But it wasn't Jesse who had opened it. Sure, she looked like Jesse, but she was smaller than even I was, with long dark hair and deep shadows beneath her black eyes. She sighed, and shifted the weight of the baby in her arms. It grizzled.

I felt myself soften immediately, despite the anger that was bubbling uncontrollably inside me. She could only be my age, yet the baby was unmistakably hers. I opened my mouth to say something, but she beat me to it.

"Hector is coming now." Her voice was barely a whisper; a quiet, exhausted, whisper.

Hector?

I was debating whether I had gotten the wrong apartment after all when he appeared at the door; strong, muscular arms holding the door open over his sister's head. He placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, before nudging her back inside.

"Do not worry, _querida_," he said, softly. "I will take care of this."

_Querida?_ That sounded vaguely like what he had called me, back before he had been mad with me. Something inside of me ached for that time.

He closed the door with a click, and with an exasperated sigh crossed his arms over his chest. "Listen, Susannah, if this is about what I think it is-"

The reminder caused another fresh, hot wave of fury to sweep over me, and I angrily jabbed a finger at his chest. "You asshole! You completely and utterly humiliated-" I reached to scram at him, claw at his face, his chest, anything I could reach and anything I could mar. But his arms formed a cage around me and held me stuck to the ground. I couldn't move, so I stayed there till the rage subsided slightly, and slid out of his now limp grip.

"Please," he whispered, and I noticed that his voice was as worn out as his sister's. "Please, let me explain."

"Let you explain why you fabricated a complete lie for the tabloids?" I snarled. "Oh, I wonder why. This is your kind of sick revenge for rejecting you the other night in the car, I get it. This is totally my fault for letting Paul walk all over me and I should be thanking you for ruining my life and my career-"

"Susannah." To my surprise, he placed a single finger over my lip and silenced me completely. "This has nothing to do with you, or what happened last night. This is about my family."

"Your family." I repeated his words lifelessly as the image of his poor, tired sister came back to me. It was a small apartment, I could see that much from the sliver of space she had opened the door up to me. How many other relatives did he have in there?

"Yes," Jesse replied, and he looked at me pleadingly. I inhaled deeply, and ground my teeth.

"Fine," I said, eventually. "Tell me everything."

-x-

"And so," Jesse concluded, as I sat frozen on the park bench we were both sitting on. "Without my mother or father, where else could we go? And with Marta's baby on the way we had to find somewhere to live fast. Our apartment we have now is on a monthly contract, and I'm hard pushed to scrape the money together each month for our rent. In fact, it's only due to our grandparents' trust fund – for education only – that I can get them to school each day."

I sighed, tightening my grip around his fingers. I don't know when I'd taken hold of his hand, or when he'd slipped his jacket around my shoulders, but every bit of anger I had felt towards him and that article had ebbed away completely. Though it had been cowardly and unjust what he had done to me, it had only been to provide for his family – for himself as well as his five sisters. Marta, his eldest sister, had racked up hospital bills during her pregnancy, which only added to his debt. It was like a clichéd on-the-streets novel. But I knew now that Jesse only wished it could disappear with the rub of an eraser.

"Jesse," I said, softly, as he squeezed my hand back. "I'm so sorry I didn't understand. Why didn't you say anything sooner? We could have… I could have…"

"Could have what, _querida_?" he questioned, when words failed me. "Money does not grow on trees. I have no-one to turn to, to ask money from. Your account barely has enough for a pair of shoes," he added, when I'd opened my mouth to interrupt. He grinned mirthlessly. "Whilst you are Number One you are not yet exactly rolling in it, Susannah."

I sighed, and held him tighter. "We'll figure something out, Jesse," I said. "Maybe Paul knows a bank that can help you with loans, or something." I didn't miss his grimace when I mentioned Paul's name. "Maybe even another tabloid interview." I laughed humourlessly.

"I don't expect anything from you, Susannah," he said, and he dropped my fingers like they were on fire. "Except another Number One single, you know." He smiled, the first warm smile I'd seen since he'd re-emerged in L.A. "Josefina loves you. I'm sure some of the money from the housekeeping jar has been stolen to buy your latest single."

"I'm sorry," I said again, but he held up a hand to silence me.

"Thank you for coming down to see me, _querida_," he said, and he patted my arm affectionately. "Even if it was to verbally abuse me." I couldn't help but smile then. "We're friends, _si_?" I nodded. He was the only friend I had now. I hadn't seen Cee Cee or Adam since I'd left Carmel all those weeks ago.

"Good." He kissed the top of my forehead. "I shouldn't have gone to the paparazzi like that, Susannah, I know that. I was just desperate." I shrugged.

"Paul will sort it out." With a pang I suddenly remembered him, all the way back in L.A, and found with some surprise that I missed him, even after the slap he had given me for stupidity. "Speaking of, I should probably get back."

"I will be waiting," he said, and I turned to look at him with some confusion. "For your next single, I mean," he clarified, and I laughed. "Come back and visit sometime, _querida._ I don't think I'll be able to afford any more freedom visits to L.A. for a while."

That stopped me as I began to get up. "Why were you in L.A to begin with?" I demanded, and he tapped his nose knowingly.

"To see you," he said, simply, though something told me he was lying. "And to get your autograph for Josefina, of course," he added, with a satirical grin. I signed the notepad he handed me with a flourish, before poking my tongue out at him as an afterthought.

"I'll see you soon, Jesse," I said. "Look after yourself."

"Oh, I will."

"Soon?" I was more hopeful than I'd realised.

He stood so he was face-to-face with me. "Sooner than you think," he answered, cryptically.

And then he was gone.


	11. When It All Goes Down

_A/N: I'm on quite a roll, considering I'm supposed to be busier than I've ever been. I quite like this chapter, so I hope you do too. Thanks for the reviews, ever-brilliant fans!_

* * *

"That was Susannah Simon's latest single, everybody, and that's it for now on Carbonated FM, we'll see you same time tomorrow…"

The DJ winked at me, and I gave a little smile back before averting my gaze. I was back in LA, doing popstar things, though all I wanted was to be out in the sunshine soaking up rays. My newest single had topped all the charts, including Carbonated FM's airplay chart, and I'd played several sold-out shows in the city, and although it was all beyond a dream come true I'd never been more tired. I wanted nothing more than a day off.

Or a week.

I glanced at Paul, who, as my publicity officer as well as agent had to sit-in on every interview I gave, was sat in the corner, engrossed in whatever he was doing on his phone. Since I had returned to Carmel, and given him a brief summary of what had gone down – as in there was no Jesse-and-Suze, I have it under control – he had been avoiding me whenever possible. You would think it would be hard, considering how much responsibility he had over me, but he was managing quite well.

I cleared my throat and Paul looked up, looking through me rather than at me. I gestured with my bag that I was ready to go and he shrugged, getting to his feet and moving to shake hands with the DJ. "Here," he said, in the low, gruff voice that I missed more than I should, "you should come to the record label party tonight. It'll be a blast."

It _would _be a blast, for all those people I didn't know who were invited. Considering it was a party for me – an event aiming to tip my album into the top spot again after it had dropped to Number Two – I couldn't name you five people on the guest list I had actually shared a conversation with. It was my duty, Paul's assistant had informed me, to sip champagne politely and schmooze my way into cliques, and I was not looking forward to it one bit.

We stepped out into the sunshine, and as I slipped on my shades I spotted a photographer crouched in the bush opposite the studio. I waved absent-mindedly before sliding into the car that was waiting for me. No doubt that shot would be in tomorrow's _People._

"God," said Kelly, as I fastened my seatbelt next to her.

"No, Kel," I corrected her, "I'm Suze. Remember?"

Kelly probably rolled her eyes at this, but I couldn't see, as she wore her own shades – dark, round Aviator ones – despite the fact that she hadn't ventured into the sun this early this morning as we'd left the hotel. Instead of verbally replying to me, she only offered me gum. I shook my head.

"No, thanks," I said, and I settled back in the leather seat and listened as Paul talked minimally to the driver in the front. "I prefer food I can actually swallow." Kelly lay back next to me and sighed, her breath not quite its usual minty-freshness. In fact, I was pretty sure I smelled cigarettes.

"God," she moaned again, and she raised a hand to fluff her hair. Which, now I noticed, wasn't its usual clean self. It looked kind of… _greasy._

O.K, who was this alien and what had they done with Kelly Prescott?

Not that I cared, really. She was only here because Paul was. Or she'd gone a week without having her picture in _Us Weekly _and was getting fame withdrawal effects. She'd been snapped a couple of times in the past month – eager face in the corner of a shot of me shopping, as the 'mystery girl' holding hands with Paul out and about – and she seemed to be sucking up as much as she could.

"You wanna go out tonight?" Kelly asked, trying to seem nonchalant. I was wrong – she _was _the Kelly I knew and hated. She was just a little rough around the edges. "I'm feeling that new nightclub on the strip."

"I can't," I replied, feeling for the first time grateful about the record company party. "I have a thing to do. Paul will get pissed if I ditch."

"That's exactly what he needs right now," Kelly remarked, sourly. "To be pissed at someone. God knows he hasn't done it enough recently. He's still annoyed at you, right?" I nodded, and I was sure I saw a sad smile play on her lips. I turned away.

"I guess I could turn up for an hour, clink glasses with Miley Cyrus for the press and then leave again," I suggested, my irritation with Paul Slater refuelled by Kelly's bitterness.

Kelly grinned. "Awesome," she said. "Be ready by eight-forty-five."

-x-

At eight-oh-five, I had Paul Slater banging on my door. For all the wrong reasons.

"Are you ready?" he demanded through the door, and I scowled as I applied my last layer of lipgloss. "We have to be there at eight-thirty, Simon, and you know the traffic is hell on Sunset on a Saturday." I grabbed my clutch and threw my door open, nearly causing Paul to fall flat on his face.

Almost. I'd get him next time.

Though the expression on his face was almost enough to satisfy the fact that his chin had not made contact with the floor. His eyes were wider than I'd ever seen them, and that was probably due to the fact that my skirt was shorter than it had ever been before.

I looked _good_.

"Ready to go?" I asked Paul, politely, and he merely nodded, offering me his arm. Finally, I was in control.

We descended the stairs in silence, me gearing myself up for the torture that lay ahead, and Paul… I had no idea. I would have given my soul to the devil to know what he was thinking, as always.

We faced the usual onslaught of photographers and the dating rumours – and as usual I wished with all my heart that they were true. We slid into the limousine and I glanced at my watch, counting down the minutes till I could leave.

The party looked great – the function room we'd hired stuffed with people I only recognised off the cover of _Cosmo _or _TeenNow _or something equally as commercial, there were silver streamers hanging from the ceiling and posters of me and my new album everywhere I turned. But all I wanted to do was leave. Paul clutched my arm, keeping me rooted.

"Don't even think about it," he growled in my ear.

I helped myself to a glass of champagne – no-one was going to stop me, I mean this was _my _party – and sipped it quietly as various people came up to me and introduced themselves. I nodded and smiled as I'd been taught to by Paul's assistant though I'd never been more bored. Was it time to leave yet?

Just when I was debating throwing myself out the open window, Kelly appeared in the gap between crowds and my heart gave a huge sigh of relief. I was glad now, however I'd felt earlier, that I'd agreed to this. Kelly glanced over my shoulder, where I'd last seen Paul, before clutching my hands and giving me a little shake.

"O.K, we need to do this craftily," she said, and I noticed her eyes were a little bloodshot. "The last thing we need is for Paul to catch us. O.K?" In fact, she looked a wreck. I hoped she was going to be able to last the night. The last thing I needed right now was to cart home an unconscious bimbo.

"Suze." Kelly snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Comprende?" I nodded, and she took a few steps backwards to merge with the crowd. "I'll give you the signal when it's clear." I nodded again, and took another sip of champagne. It tasted good. The bubbles felt good on my tongue and it took the top layer off of my senses.

I was just about to get up and get more before I saw Kelly give the signal (or at least, I thought it was the signal. Unless standing on one leg and clucking was the latest dance craze). I nodded, carefully put down my champagne flute and made my way towards her.

"Let's go!" she cried as I reached her, and with cold hands she clutched me and we raced out of the double doors and into the fresh, cool air. I was free!

And I'd never felt better.

-x-

"Come _on_." Kelly's fingers were pinching the soft flesh of my arm, urging me after her as she leapt out the cab and charged full force towards the club in front of us. The lights of the Sunset Strip had blinded me – I'd never really been allowed far from the hotel or various studios before and I was in awe of it all – and I staggered in my high heels after her, praying there wasn't a photographer anywhere to snap a 'drunken' shot.

The music from the crowd was loud; the building almost pulsating with the beat – a remix of Lady Gaga, I think, though I couldn't be sure, it was so loud – and I cupped my hands over my ears as we crossed the threshold, the only thing we needed to get in being Kelly's dazzling smile. Something told me she was a regular.

A couple of boys waved her over as we entered the club, and I gazed in wonder at the mirrored ceilings and twinkling skylights. It was all so surreal, like I'd entered a parallel universe. I'd never been anywhere remotely like this before and I couldn't be sure it wasn't something I had dreamt up. The music was deafening, the air was thick with perfume and smoke, and it was dark inside the club, despite the tiny lights dotted on the ceiling. I followed Kelly blindly as she led me to a booth where those boys were waiting.

"Hey, Kel." One of them greeted her warmly, obviously a known acquaintance, though his eyes were lacking kindness as they raked her intrusively. I sat at her side, somewhat uncomfortable as his eyes turned to me. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

I squirmed, but Kelly took the reins. "This is Suze," she said, nonchalantly. "She's a friend from back home." The second boy nodded acceptingly.

"A NoCal chick," he mused, and he pushed a sweating bottle of beer towards me. "Here, on me." I took it with a timid smile, and but didn't drink it. I knew enough about stranger danger not to be that stupid.

"So, what do you have for me tonight?" Kelly asked, and for a moment I was confused, before the first boy retrieved something from his pocket and I felt like a brick had plummeted to the pits of my stomach.

Oh, my God.

"Only the finest for you, Kel," he said, and he set it alight with an emerald lighter. I watched as it began to smoulder and Kelly leaned in, eyes glittering. The boy saw me observing me in horror, and asked, "You want the first hit?" I could only shake my head silently. Suddenly it all made sense: Kelly's weird behaviour, late nights, red eyes, sweaty hair…

Drugs. I couldn't believe it.

Kelly sat up, eyes rolling back in her head in ecstasy and she relaxed against the leather booth, sighing. "That's good," she said, to the boy, before she noticed my expression. "Oh, Susie, relax. It's harmless. It'd even do you good. You're far too cranky." I shifted away from her a little, looking frantically at the door. No one was watching. In fact, I couldn't see anybody of authority hanging around at all.

"Kelly, let's leave," I said, urgently, and I scrambled for her hand. I turned to see that she had now started cuddling up to the boy and was letting him put his dirty hands all over her – in her hair, on her legs, up her shirt. The second boy was looking at me as if he'd like to do the same.

"Kelly," I repeated, a little more anxiously. What had I been thinking, coming here? And where was the Kelly I had known back in Carmel? Even she hadn't been this reckless. She was clutching at these fifteen minutes of fame with both hands and both feet but it looked like she was losing her grip. "Kelly, please, we've _got _to go _home_…"

But I didn't get much chance to persuade her further. Because the next thing I knew, a strong warm hand was on my shoulder and I saw blue and red lights dance on the wall opposite. Just when I thought my stomach couldn't drop any further, it did.

"See here, little missy," the copper said. "You're under arrest."


	12. Jailbird

**Kind of short chapter and for that I'm sorry but I really wanted to post something this week! It's my birthday tomorrow so I was wondering if I could ask for review-shaped pressies? Ha, ha. I kind of like this chapter, even if I felt like a traitor with every word!**

* * *

A loud alarm sounded, and the gate pulled back. Before I'd even stepped over the threshold out of the cell, Paul wedged his arm under my armpit and tugged. I nearly tripped over my own feet.

"Thanks again, officer," Paul said, with a curt nod to the beefy guy who stood at the desk now, and was surveying me with a look that suggested I had committed murder, or something.

I mean, please. I might have ended up in _jail_, but I was totally innocent.

Too bad Paul didn't believe that.

"Paul, please," I begged, as he walked me up the row of cells and towards the double doors that led out into the night. "I wasn't doing drugs – believe me." Kelly, on the other hand, was doing a bad job of protesting her innocence. She wandered behind us, half-dazed and abandoned by Paul, groaning every now and again and pressing a hand to her forehead whenever we passed under an electric light.

Paul ignored me. "Do you have any idea what this could do to your career, Suze?" he demanded, and gave me a rough shove out of the door. "First some kind of messed-up love affair making the tabloids, and now drugs at a nightclub – whilst you were supposed to be at a record label party, might I add?"

"At least I have an alibi," I remarked, weakly, but unsurprisingly he pretended he hadn't heard me. Paul checked left and right before giving me the go ahead to wander out to the car. The last thing I needed, he'd told me about a hundred times already, was to be snapped by some paparazzo outside the jailhouse and have my career in ruins before it had really begun.

"Get in," Paul urged me, and gave my shoulder another rough push towards the car. I rubbed my skin defensively, before deciding to stand my ground. He looked at me like I was insane. "What are you doing?" he hissed. "Get in before somebody sees you."

"I think you're being a little oversensitive," I said, not – as he was – making an effort to lower my voice. "Are you really worried about me being in the tabloids, or about how this is going to black mark your record if it gets out?"

Kelly made a retching sound and pushed her way past us into the car. Paul looked positively murderous (well, he had come to the right place) for a few seconds, before seizing my upper arm in a vice-like grip and practically throwing me head first into the back of the limousine and slamming the door behind us.

"Are you crazy?" he roared, as the car began to move. "You stupid, infantile little girl! You could have ruined both of us back there!" To be honest, I hadn't any idea why I'd done it. If I'd have had any common sense I'd have gotten straight in the limo and keep quiet till I was spoken to.

Well, if we're talking about common sense, I should have never left the party, really.

I settled for mumbling an apology and looking the other way. The car was eerily silent for a few minutes – obviously the amount of time it took Paul to come up with another way to trash me.

"I don't know what's gotten into you," he announced, suddenly, like I was the rebellious teenager and he was my father. "I mean, you were on the rails until last week. What is it – attention-seeking? Do you seriously feel like you are lacking attention at this moment in time? Do I need to remind you that you are currently number one most sought-after person in the whole of America?"

I didn't know which – if any – question he wanted me to answer first, so I slumped silently back in my chair and let my eyes flick over absent-mindedly to Kelly, who now lay horizontal further up the limo and was snoring gently. I didn't know if it was the mention of attention-seekers or what, but I suddenly felt the need to bring up their dysfunctional relationship.

"Why are you riding _me_, so much, Paul?" I demanded. "I mean, Kelly's your girlfriend. Why aren't you interrogating the crap out of her as well?" This seemed to throw him, and he joined me in watching as Kelly swatted an imaginary fly and rolled over in her sleep.

"Apart from the obvious?" he asked, jerking his head in the direction of Kelly's inebriated form. "Come on, Suze, you know how she is. Cares more about the fame than me." His eyes – which had been filled with something close to loathing a few seconds ago – now softened, and I actually felt a little sorry for him. Must suck to be the boyfriend of Kelly Prescott.

We spent the rest of the ride without talking, the silence instead filled by Kelly's irregular snoring. I looked out the window, watching the orange streetlights whizzing by like shooting stars and wondering what could possibly happen once I got out of the car. Paul might have run out of steam now, but I couldn't completely guarantee he was finished with me yet.

It was – as the blinking digital clock in front of me told me – gone 1 a.m. by the time we reached the hotel we were staying in. This hotel was beginning to look more and more like home everything we arrived at it – it was far fresher in my memory than my real house back in Pine Crest Drive. For a second I felt a pang of homesickness before the limousine lurched to a stop and Kelly rolled off her seat and onto the floor.

"Ah, ah, ah," Paul chastised, as I leant sleepily on the reception desk to ask for my key. "My room, Suze. This isn't over."

"But-" I argued, but before I could finish, Kelly – who was draped sloppily over Paul's shoulder – suddenly coughed loudly and copiously threw up all over the lobby floor. I turned away in disgust and began heading upstairs, where who knew what waited for me.

-x-

I was sitting on the bed when I finally heard the key scrape the lock, and my stomach dropped. He'd been half an hour dealing with Kelly, and God knows how many fresh insults he had managed to come up with in that time. I stood up as he entered the room, and one look at his expression told me to suddenly become interested in my feet. I shifted my weight uneasily, and waited for him to speak first.

"Suze," he said, finally. "You know you messed up, I don't have to tell you that."

"I didn't do _anything_," I protested, looking up, and feeling my anger rise within me immediately. "It was your stupid girlfriend who had the drugs, I was trying to get her to _leave-_"

"What were you even doing there?" Paul demanded, taking a step closer. "I specifically told you not to leave that record company party tonight for your own good and you completely disobeyed me! You think I liked looking like a fool when it was time for your live performance?"

"I don't have to do everything you say," I argued sullenly, like a spoilt toddler. "I'm my own person, you don't own me!"

"Suze," Paul said again. He took another step closer and formed a manacle around my arm with his strong, brown fingers. I tried to shake him off with little success.

"Get _offa_ me!" I screamed, jerking my arm wildly. "What is the matter with you? Why are you just so _pissed off _with me all the time? Can't I do anything right-?"

I didn't get chance to finish, however, as Paul gave me one final tug into his arms and covered my mouth quite inexorably with his.

Oh my God. I was kissing Paul! I was –

He lifted me up like I was weightless and placed me on his dressing table so I could wrap my legs around his waist. My hands were in his hair as he explored my mouth and his hands explored my abdomen. The further his fingers went up my body the harder I found it to breathe. I had to do something – _anything _– to stop the intense fire I could feel flowing through me, but it turned out Paul read my mind. He was this close to slipping the button off my trousers before –

"Paul?"

It was a small voice, one so small I didn't even know how we had heard it through our heavy breathing. But suddenly he dropped me like I was on fire and whirled around. Running a clammy hand through my hair I peered over Paul's shoulder to see Kelly standing in the doorway of Paul's hotel room, staring open-mouthed at us with an expression that made my heart feel like it had been sliced in two. I felt guiltier than I had ever done before, and slid off the dressing table as quick as I could. But it was too late. Kelly had seen.

"What the _hell _is going on here?"

Only she didn't say _hell_. And I didn't particularly blame her.


	13. Pieces of Me

**Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter! Sorry it took so long, I was on holiday and also I was being lazy. :-)**

* * *

"What the _hell _is going on here?"

I smoothed my jeans and finger-combed my hair, trying to calm my external appearance even if my internal goings-on weren't so peachy. My heart was racing, my palms were sweaty… I had barely had time to contemplate what was happening with Paul and now it was all over. And by the way that Paul immediately rushed to Kelly; I had a feeling it would never happen again.

"Kel, I swear it meant nothing," he said, stroking her hair and her face as she remained still with a pained expression. "Suze means nothing to me, I'm telling the truth!"

Now wait one second.

"What?" I spat out, stupidly. "That meant _nothing_?"

Paul spun round to give me a you're-not-helping-things look, but I ignored it. Those thirty seconds had been the best of my life, and they were just _nothing _to him?

"I'm in love with you," I said, simply. "I thought by that you felt the same about me. Are you telling me that that was just some _game_? That you were just messing me around?"

"Suze." Paul, I saw with some satisfaction, left Kelly alone to tend to me. "I'm sorry, but I guess I just didn't realise-"

"Bullshit." This didn't come from me, though something to that effect was about to come running out of my mouth. Instead, it came from Kelly, who had her mouth set in a firm line. "You're lying, Paul," she said, and her eyes practically popped out of her head as she whispered the words. She looked awful, even for someone who had just caught her boyfriend cheating. Her hair was dark with sweat, her cheeks were red – beyond flushed – and the colour of her irises was abnormal. I could see her pupils from here. My mind immediately flashed to the last time I'd seen her – high.

"You always knew how obsessed she was by you," Kelly continued, running a shaky hand through her hair. "That's how you knew it would be easy to get her up here, and it would be easy to seduce her. I can see all that now. You just didn't plan of me walking in here and screwing your whole plan."

"Kelly." My heart was racing even faster now. "I'm sorry that we hurt you but I'm not sorry for what just happened between me and Paul. It was the _best _thing that's ever happened to me."

"Bullshit!" she shrieked again, and she lurched for a drawer in Paul's dresser. Paul acted immediately, throwing all his weight onto her and forcing her back.

"No, Kelly," he said, and his voice sounded panicked. "I told you about that in confidence. Please don't do anything stupid. Listen to me – I _love _you, not Suze. Of course I love you."

That hurt, of course it did. I tried to tell myself that he was just saying that so that he could calm her down, stop her from doing whatever he was afraid she was about to do. But it didn't work. I'd told him, finally, how I felt, and he had just tossed me aside like I didn't even matter.

And boy was I pissed.

"Kelly," Paul murmured, and he cradled her face in his hands tenderly. "Please forgive me. It was nothing but a huge mistake."

O.K. Now I had to draw the line.

"Mistake?" I echoed. My voice cracked. Kelly lifted one sullen eye to me, and exploded again.

"I was so complacent," she said, her voice sending the short hairs on the back of my neck into overdrive. "Being in love with Paul and figuring you, Suze, were too busy being a popstar and being in love with Jesse to make a move on _Paul-_"

WHAT?

"Kelly," I said, trying to keep my voice level. "I'm not in love with _Jesse._ Believe me, my life would be a whole lot simpler right now if I loved Jesse and not Paul-"

Kelly snorted indelicately. "Oh, please," she said, rolling her eyes as Paul stood helplessly between us. "You don't love Paul. You've got some obsessive little crush on him but it's not serious, no matter how much you want it to be." She watched my face wince a little at the remembrance of Paul's rejection, and smiled slyly. "You're just some pretty little poptart he could use and forget about. You think he cares, that he's your manager, he'd never desert you. Well I got news for you. He was about to sign _me _and drop you like a hot potato."

One look at Paul told me everything I needed to know. That it was true he didn't really care about me, that it was true he was going to sign Kelly, that it was true he was just going to go as far as he could with me and then dump me just so he could tell all his friends he'd slept with Susannah Simon. I felt sick.

"Hurts, doesn't it?" Kelly said, with her tone oozing with satisfaction. "Now you know how it feels to be betrayed by someone you thought you could trust."

She reached behind her and retrieved something from her back pocket, and from the look on Paul's face, this was exactly what he had been trying to stop her from getting her hands on. She lifted it to her head, and wrapped two fingers around the trigger.

"If I called you murderers would that be too harsh?" she asked, as she tightened her grip. "Because you have made me want to die."

"Kelly, no-" I screamed, but it was too late. One loud bang signalled to the whole word that I was too late and I watched in horror as the jigsaw of her face fell apart with the blast. I fell to my knees, sobbing as my heart too broke into pieces after all that I had done.

* * *

Everything about being in a hospital scared me – the monotonous beeping, the stiff staff uniforms, the imminent death. I had been in one eleven years ago to witness my dad leave this world, and now I was back to see the same happen to my friend.

Only this time it was my fault.

Paul called an ambulance in panic as I sat at Kelly's side, clasping her cold clammy hand as I waited desperately and helplessly for sirens to be heard in the distance. I knew it was hopeless – the pulse in her wrist had ebbed away long before – but some childlike part of me was clinging to the belief that the paramedics could reverse what I had done to her.

We sat in those cold hard seats now, long after hearing the confirmation: dead on arrival. Kelly Prescott, my classmate, long-term rival and short-term friend was dead. She might have pressed the trigger herself, but I had made her do it, no matter what the doctor said about high levels of drugs in her system making her paranoid, or whatever. I knew the truth. I was to blame.

Paul hadn't spoken to me since we'd arrived; he only sat numbly beside me now as I closed my eyes, wishing for a do-over of today. Or maybe not only of today but of the past couple of months on how I'd handled everything. Would I still have signed with Paul if I could have foreseen this? Was it even _worth it_?

As if answering my internal question, a newspaper caught my eye. I picked it up with shaking fingers and took in the headline with a heavy heart:

**SIMON'S ALBUM FALLS OUT OF TOP 40: IS SHE JUST A ONE-HIT WONDER?**

That was enough – enough to tip me over the edge. Without a word to Paul I got up, not knowing exactly where I was heading or what I was about to do. It was only as I reached the payphone and stabbed in a number I knew off by heart that I fully realised who I needed at this moment in time.

"Mom?" I said, as her voice filled the earpiece. "I need you to come and get me."


	14. Candlelight

**I am warning you now, this chapter is all angsty. 'Tis the downside of killing someone off, I suppose. But it does have a point. The story moves on again next chapter, promise. Thanks to all who reviewed!**

* * *

We were back at the hotel now, in the lobby. It had been empty when we'd arrived at gone 5 am, but now just under two hours later things were beginning to pick up a little. The receptionist bustled about behind her desk, tactfully ignoring the pointed silence between Paul and me; broken only when Paul half-heartedly greeted someone he knew as they walked between us.

He sat across from me in a stiff armchair, his head resting against the wallpapered wall. I was lying horizontally on a hard sofa, a notebook in my lap. The page was empty, stark white. I had nothing to say.

We were waiting for my mother, who had promised to be in L.A. as soon as she could. This vague promise did little for my inner turmoil but it had forced me to clean my face in the hospital restrooms, and run a brush through my straggly hair. Even after our estrangement, I didn't want her to have anything to criticise.

I dropped my head from where I'd been studying the large revolving door to look at my notebook again. I had so many thoughts running through my head – most relating to this morning's events: Paul's hands in my hair, Kelly's piercing shriek, the gunshot…

As if like a reflex I reached for my pen and stabbed the paper, sending the point through several pages before throwing them both onto the marble floor and crying out in anguish. This woke Paul from his reverie and his head jerked back to a perpendicular position, his ice blue eyes penetrating me. Once this had sent my heart a flutter. Now I was too far in, now I hated how much I loved him when he did not love me.

"Susie," he said, and his voice sounded rusty. I met his stony gaze with my own blank, listless stare.

"Don't call me that," I snapped. "Don't talk to me."

"Suze," he persisted, and he got off his armchair to kneel by my side. "Please, don't shut me out. We need to put on a united front at a time like this." He reached for my hand, but I pulled it out of his grasp.

"United…" I echoed, and instantly my mind flashed back to just several hours earlier, when we'd been just a little too united. I turned away from him. "We killed her, Paul," I said to the wall.

"No, Susie," he said, and I recoiled from the use of my nickname. He snatched my hand into his. "You can't think like that. Kelly, she…" My heart lurched at the first mention of her name. The doctors had been cold and impersonal. _Patient is dead._ "… she had problems, problems we couldn't have saved her from. What happened tonight was inevitable, you have to know that." I wondered who he was really trying to convince.

"United," I said again, and Paul nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

"I can look after you, Suze," he said, quietly, repeating the words he had said to me right in the beginning. "If you'll let me." There were idiot-proof tabs: sign here, here and here. I looked up at Paul again, and his eyes were there again, urging me on.

I picked up the pen. What did I have to sign away anymore? My livelihood had been shattered just as Kelly's face had been. Let Paul Slater have my life. I didn't want it.

_Susannah Simon._ I was bored of my own name by the end. Paul's hand closed over mine as I finished the last signature, and he smiled weakly at me.

"I'll look after you," he said again, and he closed his eyes as he rested his head on my shoulder. For a second I felt the same longing again, to be close to him, and with that realisation I jerked my head upwards. I couldn't fall into that trap again. Look where it had left me.

"Susie." I turned around to see my mother there, thinner and older than how I'd left her. But she was still my mother, through the veil. Breaking away from Paul, I got to my feet.

"Mommy," I said into her shoulder, as she stroked my hair. The tears didn't come, but my voice cracked nonetheless.

"Ssh," she whispered, holding me close. "Everything's going to be O.K now."

-x-

On my mother's orders, I went upstairs to sleep. But for what felt like days I lay there on my bed awake, staring at Kelly's empty bed and listening to the dull thud of my heartbeat. I didn't know what to think, whether it was a good thing my mom was back in my life or not. It had been insanity that had led me to that phone box back in the hospital, the same kind of insanity that had resulted in me kissing Paul and everything that had followed. I winced as the corresponding images flashed before me, like an old film reel – the kiss, the scream, the shot…

I turned over, away from her bed, and tried to focus on my heavy breathing, counting the seconds it took for my chest to rise and fall, until my head stopped pounding. I had to get out of this fog; I had to rid myself of this feeling that nothing would ever be the same. But before I could figure out how, I was drifting, finally, to a place where I could pretend that everything was fine.

-x-

I woke some time later to find that it was dark outside, and the only source of light was coming from a candle in the far corner of the room. Paul was sat in front of it on the small, elegant loveseat, head resting on his hands and his eyes focused on that hot, flickering flame.

It was that image, and not any of the others that I had seen in the past 48 hours that had struck the biggest chord. I had seen many emotions on Paul's face – smugness, anger, even desperation as he tried to pull Kelly back from the edge – but now he was emotionless; no crease in his forehead, no sparkle in those eyes. It scared me, and for the first time I realised that he had been there too, he had to be feeling what I was feeling. It was that realisation that led me across the room, clutching the bedclothes to my cold skin, to the empty space beside him on that loveseat. I closed my fingers around his and he turned to look at me, eyes large and empty. Maybe this wasn't enough, just his hand holding mine, but as I leant in to kiss him I prayed that he would never let go.


	15. Happy Birthday

**Agh, I know! It's taken me ages to update. But the good (bad? I don't know) news is that this fic is close to finishing. Ish. At least I know where I'm going. The plan's been properly written out now.**

**Please forgive me! School is kicking my bum big time. I'll try not to wait so long next time.**

**But on the plus side: 100 reviews!! Thank you so much!**

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"Wake up, birthday girl. I've got a surprise for you."

_Surprise._ Anyone who knew me well knew I hated surprises. Which may have been the reason that I lay there awake, but with my eyes closed. I wasn't sure I wanted to open my eyes just yet.

Today was my birthday, and it had been three months or so since Kelly had died. These days nobody talked about her, as if she hadn't existed at all. I didn't bring her up, for fear that the dark cloud that had descended onto me since that night would hover over everybody else as well. So I kept silent, and suffered alone.

Paul and I were, for want of a better word, together. This meant he held my hand when we ventured out in public, kissed me goodnight, and now, apparently, gave me birthday surprises. It wasn't how I'd pictured us together. But I was starting to learn that life didn't work that way.

Finally surrendering, I rolled over and embraced Paul, who was crouched by the side of my bed. "I hate surprises," I whispered in his ear, and he chuckled, like I was joking. "Good morning." Today he smelled of citrus fruit and tobacco, like he had the first day I met him. That was a birthday present in itself.

"You won't hate this surprise," he said, and I sat up, waiting. He grinned, and got to his feet, perching on the side of my bed, on top of my toes. "This is the best birthday surprise in the history of birthday surprises." I rolled my eyes, and held out of my hands.

"Go ahead."

"Nuh-huh," replied Paul, and I sighed. Of course. You could never get a straight answer out of Paul. "You have to guess." God.

"Is it bigger than a bread box?" I asked, and he laughed, a big, booming laugh.

"Yes, it's bigger than a bread box. It's huge! It's massive!"

"You haven't bought me a jumbo jet, have you?" This wouldn't be surprising. Last week alone he bought me my first car, plus an expensive watch. Like he was trying to make up for something.

Paul shook his head. "Fine, I'll tell you. Close your eyes." I did so obediently, and I felt him drop something into my hands, something slim and made from cardboard. It didn't _feel _bigger than a breadbox.

My eyes flew open, and I saw that in my hands lay a ticket, small and rectangular, with big, bold, black lettering. I read it aloud.

**FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY: SUSANNAH SIMON, LIVE IN CONCERT!**

I looked to Paul for some kind of explanation, and he blushed.

"Look," he said, uncomfortably. "I know you miss it, O.K? And I know that if there's anyone who can prepare for a concert in just one afternoon it's you. I just thought it would be a good way for you to get back out there after…" He trailed off, not putting into words what happened. Nobody ever did.

"It's perfect," I said, trying to keep my voice level. "Thank you." And I leant in to kiss him, wrapping both arms around his neck and trying to lose myself in his scent. It almost worked.

"So I guess I'll just leave my little rock star to it, then?" he asked, and I nodded, pushing back the covers and finally getting out of bed. "You have a sound check at 2pm, and then hair and make-up at four. We let the crazy fans in at 6:30pm sharp, and then your support band starts at seven. Deal?" I nodded again, taking in all of this. I'd forgotten the craziness of organising a show.

Paul kissed my forehead one last time and then disappeared, leaving me with my thoughts. I mentally ran through the schedule one more time before crouching on my knees to find what I'd hidden weeks ago underneath my mattress. And when I finally found it I was surprised by how battered it was.

**Songs**, it said explicably on the front, and I flicked through it to find the lines and lines I'd written in secret since that night. It was time to share them with the world, I thought, as I got to my feet and began searching for my guitar.

-x-

"You're late!"

Not the words you want to hear as you walk through the door. As if I didn't already know everyone in the room had been talking about me by the way all their heads turned in my direction as my sneakers scuffed the floor. Paul's eyes flickered dangerously at me as I drew nearer, and I knew at that moment that the honeymoon period of my birthday was officially over.

_Appearances, appearances _I thought, and plastered a smile on my face.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice bouncing with false cheeriness. "Some fans stopped me on my way in here – asked for autographs." I flashed a what-can-you-do look at one of the men Paul had been talking with. "You know pre-teens." The response I got suggested he really didn't.

This was a lie, of course. But I wasn't about to announce to the world – and Paul – that I'd spent the previous half an hour spewing copiously due to pre-gig jitters.

"Suze," Paul said, pleasantly, and he leant over to kiss my cheek. This was merely a cover, however, an opportunity for him to hiss in my ear, "Get your ass to sound check. _Now._" Restraining the urge to connect my guitar with his temple, I stepped back and waved to his companions.

"Duty calls," I said, before heading towards the main hall. "See you at the show!"

The sound check went without a hitch – I stuck to playing my old stuff, keeping my new material a secret only to be unveiled later – and it was only later, when I was sitting in make-up battling with my claustrophobia – management had stuck me in a whitewashed room with no windows, bastards – that I met an obstacle. It shouldn't have been any surprise to me really that it came Paul-shaped.

"Hey," he said, not even waiting for an invitation to come in. "I come bearing gifts." I sighed, and turned to look at him, anticipating more. "Look," he said eventually, like I'd demanded it of him. "I'm sorry for the way I treated you earlier, O.K? I know how dedicated you are to your fans, and I guess it's all good for publicity…" He trailed off. "It's just I worked really hard to get you this gig, O.K? And you very nearly screwed up the whole schedule."

"I'm sorry," I said, because it was what he wanted me to say. "But if it helps I'm all ready to go now – give or take a few applications of foundation." Paul grinned.

"You are not," he argued, and he reached for my fingers. Playing with my hands was a particular past-time of his. "You're nervous as hell; I can see it in your eyes." I sighed again, and he squeezed my fingers. "I knew it. See, this is why we're perfect for each other."

"Who are you trying to convince?" I asked, avoiding his gaze.

"What?" Paul's smile faltered slightly.

"Nothing," I said, and I slid my arms around his neck. "Now go, before I throw up all over you."

Paul laughed, a big booming laugh, before reaching into his pockets. "These," he said, leaving a tray of white pellets on my dressing table, "are for you. Antacids." I smiled, trying to make it reach my eyes.

"Thank you," I replied, and I kissed him, breathing in his citrus-y scent and trying to pretend like it was that first day all over again. "I'll see you later."

"You bet," he said, getting to his feet. "I'll be the crazed fan in the front row waving my cigarette lighter." And then he left, winking at my make-up artist as she entered the room.

"Hey," she said, waving the pot of foundation triumphantly. "I found your shade, _finally. _Are you ready?"

"Um," I replied, casting a glance at the antacids Paul had given me. Popping one from its case, I put into my mouth before answering. "Yup. Let's go."

-x-

The Staples Centre in downtown L.A. seats 20,000 people, and by the sounds of things back stage, most of them were chanting my name. And having thousands of people calling your name at the same time? Yeah, that's really scary.

"Hey, rockstar," said Paul, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. "How you feeling?"

Instead of answering verbally, I was surged by an urge to take him by the jacket collar and kiss him hard on the mouth. We were still going when the countdown began for me to appear on stage.

"What was that for?" Paul asked, as I was dragged away by stage management.

"Something to remember me by!" I called, before I was yanked out of sight.

"Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze!"

The shouts were even louder under the stage. I suddenly got the feeling my head was about to explode, and I just knew my forehead was breaking out into all kinds of sweat. Was anyone else feeling like this? The stage management person who had my arm in a deadlock appeared fine. My back-up singers looked fine. Was it just me?

"Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze! Suze!"

"Here." I was handed a microphone, and winced as a fluorescent spotlight found me. Were those lights always that bright? The stage piece I was standing on began to rise, and suddenly I was faced with the din that was my audience. My mouth ran dry, my hands became clammy… this wasn't just nerves. Something was wrong.

The music started, making me jump. The microphone collided with my abdomen, sending feedback ringing through the arena, and the first few rows cringed.

"I..." I began, my mouth feeling numb. "Inerthor…" My words were slurred, and my lids were drooping. What was –?

Before I could compute anymore, I had the feeling of falling and the last thing I remember was the sound of feedback from the microphone one more time before my head hit the stage floor.


	16. Imprisonment

**A/N: Wow. I have no idea if anyone is still reading this, or wants to, but I found my Fanfiction account today and was suddenly inspired to try and finish this, my last Work-In-Progress! I welcome new readers, I'm about three years out of date with the Mediator board, but I'd love to finish this. Call it procrastination, call it desperation, but if you read, please review!**

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"_Patient in a stable condition, hydration levels restored…"_

_As I came to, the first thing I heard besides the pounding heartbeat in my temple was a robotic beeping to my left. I blinked, groggy, and tried to focus on the scene in front of me. Three figures, their outlines blurry, the first I recognised to be – _

"_Paul!"_

_I reached blindly for him, and a sharp tug at the skin on my hand drew my attention to an IV plugged into my vein. Ouch. _

"_Hey, beautiful," he said, and his face came into focus as he crouched at my bedside. "How are you feeling?" I swallowed, my throat dry and scratchy. _

"_I'm… what happened?" I rubbed my face with my free hand and turned my attention to the other two people in the room. My mother, pale and anxious, with a wan smile plastered on her lips, and another man, whose tall and authoritative figure was clothed by a white lab coat. "Who are you?"_

"_Susie, you're not well," my mother said, approaching the foot of my bed and wrapping her hands around the bedstead. "The doctors found traces of amphetamines in your system-"_

_Wait, what?_

"_You're self-medicating, Suze," Paul said, plainly, squeezing my fingers forcefully. "We know that Kelly's death affected you deeply, but we had no idea it had come to this-"_

"_I am not-"_

"_Dr. West is here to help you," my mother continued, and gestured to the man in the white coat, who nodded curtly. "He can help you overcome your addiction-"_

"_I don't have an addiction!" I cried, struggling to sit up in bed, my weak body groaning at the effort. "I didn't even…" Suddenly, the image of my dressing room, and those white pills came flooding back. "Paul! Paul gave me those pills! He told me-"_

"_You're confused, Susie," he said, with a look of mock sympathy on his lips and something else glittering in his eyes. "The drugs are messing with your recall. Obviously, the label is disappointed to have cancelled the concert but their main concern is that our best artist is up and well again…"_

_I spluttered, trying to force words out, but nothing happened. All three faces were centred on me, and I drew in a deep breath, helpless. I hadn't taken those pills purposefully, I knew it. I knew it.__But who else would believe me?_

Morningside Retreat had the name of a nursing home, but there was nothing nurturing or home-like about it. It was cold and clinical, with whitewashed walls and electric lighting and grey Roman blinds at every window. Every patient, including myself, was given a strict schedule punishable by removal of patient privileges, like cellphone or Internet privileges, and a thick plastic bracelet that meant that everyone knew everything about you just by grabbing your wrist. Or in my case, everyone knew what the label was peddling about me – a latent drug addiction, mostly opiates, brought on by the violent suicide of my best friend three months previously. I had spent months keeping silent about Kelly's death – so _not _my best friend – and now everybody wanted to talk about it. Some days the situation was so surreal I had to sit down on my hard, rock-like mattress just to get my head around it.

But just because I knew the details of my situation, I didn't know the reasons for it. I knew that I didn't have an addiction, but my mother was so distraught by the results of my stomach pumping that she was convinced I had to seek help immediately, and something in Paul's expression – and the reminder he'd given me later about the terms of my contract – told me I'd regret fighting it. I couldn't believe I'd thought he loved me, or at least wanted to be with me. He had imprisoned me.

I sat now in my room, wedging my body in the narrow window seat and staring at the bleak coastline, as I had done every day for three months. I had group therapy, during which time I tried to ignore the stares I got from the rest of the patients, and individual therapy with Dr. West, when I mostly remained silent and listened the repetitive pleas for me to admit to my "problem", but for an hour a day I was allowed "reflection" time, which was what I was doing now, wondering just how my life had got so out of control.

"Hey!"

I craned my neck to see my over-perky, over-chirpy roommate, Heather, bound through the door. For someone who had tried to commit suicide over a break-up, she was surprisingly, annoyingly, chipper. All the damn time.

"Hi," I murmured, as she settled on her bed and flipped through a magazine. I bristled; when I first arrived at Morningside I'd been banned from reading any kind of tabloid press after I'd flipped out on my doctors upon spotting a headline about my 'condition', and had had to be sedated. Part of me was itching to snatch the rag from her hands, but I restrained myself. Still, I couldn't help but ask.

"Anything good in there?"

Heather looked up. "You mean, anything about you." She flipped a few more pages. "Nah. Sorry. This is a few weeks old, though. You never know, someone might be spreading a new rumour about you this week." I sighed. I'd been everything from bipolar to carrying Paul's secret love child in the last few months.

"O.K, thanks."

I had just refocused my gaze on a seagull stalking the gravel path outside the window when there was a knock on the door. Michaela, one of the centre's administrative assistants, peered in anxiously. "Suze?" she asked. "You have a visitor." My forehead crinkled in confusion. The only visitor I ever had was my mother, who checked in every week to make sure I wasn't 'relapsing' and to make sure I was eating my green vegetables. Paul never contacted me; the only time I was ever reminded that he still knew I existed was when his assistant called to update me on album sales, and remind me I was still contractually obligated to tour as soon as I completed my programme.

I stood up, and Heather grinned at me. "Oh," she said, as I passed on my way to the door. "_That's _who the guy in reception is. He's cute!" Cute?

I followed Michaela down the corridor and into reception. At first the light from the artificial skylight was so blinding I couldn't focus, but then I noticed the figure sat on the hard leather sofa. And my stomach did a little somersault.

"Jesse?"

If I'd forgotten how beautiful he was, I was instantly reminded as he stood up to greet me – tall, olive-skinned and broad-shouldered, I couldn't blame Heather for ogling. But as I got closer, I noticed he didn't have the glow about him that he normally did. Dark circles sagged below his eyes and his t-shirt hung off his ribs as if he had lost weight.

"Hi, _querida,_" he said, and his voice sounded tired, too. "I'm sorry I'm so late."

-x-

We sat now, on one of the few benches Morningside had placed in the "visitors' garden", which was so close to the sea that when the tide was in you got a face full of spray. Neither of us had said anything since he had stood up in reception; Michaela had simply ushered us outside and then left us to our own devices. Finally, I couldn't take the stilted silence any longer.

"Jesse, what did you mean, 'sorry I'm so late'?" He shifted guiltily in his seat.

"I heard about your overdose," he replied, avoiding my gaze. "But Marta's baby, he got sick on the day that I found out, and I've been working overtime ever since to cover the hospital bills, and-"

"He's sick? Is he O.K?" Jesse's shoulders sagged with the force of his sigh.

"He'll get there," he answered, and I felt so saddened by the emptiness of his reply that I refrained from pressing any further. "But you have to know, I would have been here the second you arrived if I could have. Susannah, I know we had lost contact after Kelly's death, but I had no idea it had affected you so deeply-"

I stood up, suddenly, and walked away from the bench. Jesse stopped speaking in surprise. "_Querida,_ are you O.K?"

"No," I said, through gritted teeth. "No, I'm not O.K." I spun around to face him. "Jesse, I don't have an addiction. Paul made the whole thing up, after he tricked me into taking drugs at my birthday concert." Jesse's eyes widened.

"_Hijo de puta_," he whispered, and he stood up to face me. "Susannah, you have to tell the truth!"

"How could I?" I shot back. "No-one would believe me, not even my own mother believes me. Paul's spun this whole story, saying how despondent I've been since Kelly's death – and it's true, I have been withdrawn, I have been depressed! But not on _drugs_, for God's sake!" I sank back down on the bench and put my head in my hands. "I'm such an idiot. I thought he _loved _me." I felt Jesse tighten beside me, and was suddenly reminded of our passionate confrontation in the car all those months ago. "I just have no idea why he would do this to me."

Jesse grimaced, and pulled something out of his pocket. "I do," he replied, and handed it to me. It was a page torn out of a newspaper, folded in half, and in half again. I stared at this contraband, and smiled, revelling in the taboo. "That is why I'm here," he continued. "You won't be smiling once you read it."

I unfolded the article, and swallowed heavily before I began to read.

**MOVING ON: PAUL SLATER FINDS NEXT BIG THING**

_**Slater, 22, takes newly-signed Lola Byrne out for a romantic lunch. But what about Suze Simon?**_

Below the headline there was a photo of this girl, this Lola. She was blonde, she was beautiful, she was everything I wasn't. My heart sank. And then there was a photo of Paul… kissing her on the mouth. My heart sank lower.

"Oh, my God," I muttered, and threw the article aside.

"He wanted you out of the way," Jesse affirmed, as I tried to make sense of the anger swimming round my head. "I guess so he could have more time for this…Lola." The way he said her name was like it tasted bad in his mouth.

"He _used _me," I stammered, and could feel my eyes filling with tears. "He _used _me!"

"We can get him for this, Susannah," Jesse said, and he placed two hands on my shoulders to force me to look at him. "We can make him pay for everything he's done to you… and to Kelly." I sat for a while, my head pounding with fury, with confusion, with heartbreak. Then, after a while, my breathing slowed, and I met his gaze again.

"O.K," I said, as I took his hand in mine. "Let's do it."


	17. Brave New World

_**A/N: Thank you to everyone who read the last chapter, I checked my traffic stats and am very grateful for the views. A little bit of S/J fluff; I'd like to know what you think so if you do read, please tell me if you like.**_

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_**In the parking lot. **_

The agitated buzzing of my cellphone alerted me to Jesse's arrival, and I got off the sagging bed to unlock the door to my motel room. I'd liberated myself from Morningside three days prior, and was now hiding out from the label using the funds from my savings account – the one Paul didn't have access to – before they figured out I was no longer safe and sound in rehab, if they hadn't been told already. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a few of the nurses on payroll. The room wasn't great, granted, with its instant-coffee walls and moulting carpet, and the suspicious smell coming from the shower, but I decided it was exactly the place that nobody would expect me to come. Plus, the cheaper the place, the longer I could stay here and away from the prying eyes of Paul Slater.

Lying back down on my bed, I heard Jesse's hand on the doorknob and looked up to see his smiling face in the doorway. He still looked tired, but the glow of his skin was back, and the look he gave me was positively radiating. "Hi, _querida_," he said.

"Hi," I replied, and made room for him on the bed. He sank down next to me and lifted a brown paper bag onto his lap. "Ooh, you bring supplies."

"The very best," he said, and emptied a variety of vending-machine goods on the quilt cover. I picked up a bag of Cheetos and tore them open. "Don't say I never give you anything."

"Um, I do believe it was my twenty that paid for these," I retorted, and I noticed Jesse's face fall slightly. "Oh, God, what did I say?" Jesse made a dismissive gesture with his hands.

"Nothing," he replied, and helped himself to some Milk Duds. "It's just that… one day, I will take you on a real date." Now I felt like an ass.

"That's not what I meant," I said, softly, and patted his knee affectionately. "I mean, come on, Cheetos! They're my favourite!" He grinned. "So, what's the word on the street?"

Jesse retrieved a newspaper from the bag. "Well, they've figured you out," he said, and he showed me an article a few pages in detailing my departure from rehab. "My guess is Paul was probably alerted to this a few hours before it went to print." Damn. I took it from him and began scanning the words.

"Ugh, they always use the crappiest pictures." Jesse gave me a look. "O.K, I'll be serious now. Even if Paul does know I'm gone, is he really going to guess that I'm in a crappy motel in Monterrey? It's hardly just round the corner from Morningside."

"Probably not," Jesse responded, but he looked dubious. "I'm just wondering if maybe we shouldn't move you. I mean, we still haven't figured out a plan of action."

"Speak for yourself. I thought my guerrilla-style assassination plan was stellar."

Jesse didn't look convinced. He began rifling through the newspaper again. "I was just thinking that maybe… you could move in with me." He said the last bit so quietly and quickly that I barely saw his lips move. But when the impact of his suggestion caught up with me, my heart turned over in my chest.

"Come live with you?" I repeated, and I could have sworn Jesse's cheeks coloured slightly.

"There's plenty of space in Marta's room," he added quickly, as if I had gotten the wrong idea. "Even with the baby."

"I don't know," I murmured. "I mean, I wouldn't want to put your family in any danger or anything…"

Right that second, there was a knock at the door. I yelped in apprehension, and leapt across the room to hide in the closet before Jesse could answer the door. Through a crack in the wood I spied the familiar figure of housekeeping trying to step over the threshold.

"Not today, thank you," Jesse argued politely, and eventually they got the hint. The door closed, and I stepped out of the closet, breathing a sigh of relief.

"O.K," I conceded, and Jesse grinned. "Maybe your place would be the best solution after all."

-x-

"Jesse!"

As we slid the key into the lock and eased our way into Jesse's apartment – me bundled up heavily in several beanie hats and sunglasses – we were greeted by a cacophony of sisterly demands.

"Josefina stole my bracelet, Jesse _tell _her-"

"Marisol drew on my colouring book, she _knows _it's mine-"

"Jesse, what's for dinner?"

He shot me an apologetic look as he detached several sisters from his body. I laughed at his misfortune, and began relieving myself of my disguise. As I set my final hat down on the kitchen table, a silence fell amongst Jesse's siblings. I glanced up, to see all three of them gazing at me in wonder.

"_Chicas_," Jesse said, "meet Susannah Simon. She'll be staying here for a few days."

"Susannah _Simon_," breathed the youngest, who I took to be Marisol. "I hear you on the radio _all the time_." I squirmed awkwardly at her admiration. I garnered similar looks from Josefina and Mercedes.

"We're all big fans, right, girls?" Jesse filled in, and they all nodded in awe. "Why don't you all go and wash up for dinner?"

"What _is _for dinner?" Mercedes persisted. "I'm _starving_." She rubbed a hand across her stomach for extra impact.

Jesse pulled a face. "I'm not sure," he said, and he began examining the insides of cupboards. "It has to be quick, I have to go to work-"

"Well," I piped up, and all heads snapped back to me. "I don't know about you, but I make a mean bowl of pasta." Jesse began immediately trying to dissuade me.

"Oh, no no no," he said, and he began pulling trays and dishes out of a cupboard. "You don't need to do that, you're a guest, I couldn't possibly ask you to-"

"It's fine," I insisted, and I strode over to the kitchen, placing my hands over his to halt his fussing. "Please," I urged, and he desisted. "I want to do this. To thank you for everything." He sighed in surrender.

"O.K," he said, and gestured to the few units and the hob. "It's all yours. I have to go change."

"Go," I ordered, and turned to his three sisters. "O.K, kids, who wants to help?"

-x-

I sat alone, now, in the darkness of the lounge, reflecting on the turn of events this evening had taken. Jesse had disappeared off to work just ten minutes after dinner, and I had spent the night bonding with his kid sisters, who were in equal parts adorable and troublesome. They argued, constantly, flicking each other with specks of pasta sauce and kicking each other with their jelly shoes under the table, until Marta returned home with her baby son in her arms, and silence fell across the table.

"Hi," she had said, even more weary than Jesse had been the day he had come to the retreat. "I'm Marta." She shifted the toddler in her arms, who grizzled and eyed me with suspicion. "You must be Susannah."

"I am," I said, and I rose from the table to greet her. "I'm just staying her for a few days-"

"You're more than welcome," she replied, with a wan smile. The baby moaned again, and she pulled a face. "I'm sorry," she said, "but can you hold him a second? I really need to go change." I took him in my arms and marvelled at his weight as she disappeared. I sat back at the table, surveying the De Silva sisters as they now ate their food willingly, and rocked the small child in my arms, letting myself, just for a second, picture what life would be like if I lived with Jesse forever.

The sound of the door disturbed me from my reverie, and I turned my head to see Jesse creeping into the darkness. "Hey," he whispered, and I smiled. "Why is it so dark?"

"I guess I like it," I replied, and reached behind me to switch on a lamp. "Sorry. Everyone's in bed."

"That's O.K," he said, and he sat down beside me, stretching his toes in front of him. "I'm just glad you survived De Silva dinnertime."

"It was fine," I equivocated, thinking back to the family scene I had witnessed. "Marta's back. The baby's check-up went well." Jesse visibly relaxed.

"That's good," he said, and he reclined into the sofa cushion. "I'm so tired I could just go to sleep right here." He closed his eyes, and he looked so peaceful for that one second that I couldn't take my eyes off him. I envied his calmness, and closed my eyes too to try and emulate it, sinking back and grazing his shoulder with mine. "It's good, right?"

"Very," I admitted, and exhaled deeply. His presence was soothing; I could feel myself relaxing in spite of everything. "Thank you for everything, Jesse. I'm so lucky that my only friend is you."

"I would do anything for you, Susannah," he said, and I felt his hand slide over mine and squeeze my fingers. My eyes snapped open at the electricity of his touch. I wondered if he felt it too. I turned my head to face him. "Susannah," he said, but I placed a finger on his lips.

"Don't say anything," I whispered, and moved my hand to around his neck, pulling him closer to me, and brushing his lips gently with mine, just for a second. My skin tingled at the contact, and I felt a rush of excitement run up my spine that I had never felt with Paul.

I tilted my head backwards to break the kiss, and exhaled, but Jesse moaned at the interruption and pulled me back, sinking his mouth into mine and running a hand through my hair. It was the most perfect moment I had ever felt, more addictive than applause and more satisfying than the most perfect set and yet strangely not so; the harder he kissed me the harder I wanted him to, and I pressed myself against him as we explored each other gently and tenderly.

"Jesse," I murmured against his lips, and he smiled.

"Susannah," he returned, before he lowered us down so that we lay side by side on the sofa, and we delved further into this newfound world of our own.


End file.
